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SOME PERSONAL 
IMPRESSIONS 



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The Library of Congress 



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SOME PERSONAL 
IMPRESSIONS 



BY 

TAKE JONESCU 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

VISCOUNT BRYCE, O.M. 




l/Ottfcon 
NISBET & CO. LTD 

22 BERNERS STREET, W. 1 



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First published in IQ19. 



DEC 24 1919 



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©U Mint 36 6 9 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Introduction vii 

I. Monsieur Poincare 3 

II. Prince Lichnowsky 11 

III. Count Berchtold 23 

IV. The Marquis Pallavicini 31 
V. Count Goluchowsky ----- 39 

VI. August 2, 1914 47 

VII. Kiderlen-Waechter 57 

VIII. Count Aehrenthal 73 

IX. Count Czernin 83 

X. Count Mensdorff 95 

XI. England's Antipathy to War - 101 

XII. The Responsibility for the War - - 107 

XIII. King Charles of Roumania - - - 113 

XIV. Herr Riedl 127 

XV. Count Szeczen 135 

XVI. Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace - - 141 

XVII. Baron Banffy 147 

XVIII. Roumanian Policy 155 

XIX. Tragedy 161 

XX. Count Tisza 167 

XXI. Talaat Pasha 173 

XXII. Prince yon Bulow 185 



vi CONTENTS 



PAOE 



XXIII. Taticheff 195 

XXIV. France and the. Teuton - - 203 
XXV. A Cousin of Tisza 211 

XXVI. New Italy 217 

XXVII. My Four Last Germans 223 

XXVIII. Eleutherios Venizelos - 239 

XXIX. The Kaiser .... - 255 



INTRODUCTION 

BY VISCOUNT BRYCE 

THIS book should need no introduction, for 
all who have tried to follow the course 
of events in the Danubian States and 
Balkan States during the last few years cannot but 
know the name and fame of Mr. Take Jonescu, one 
of the most active and gifted, as well as one of 
the most highly cultivated statesmen in Eastern 
Europe. However, at the request of its author, 
whose acquaintance I had the good fortune to 
make when travelling in Roumania fourteen 
years ago, I willingly write a few sentences of 
Preface to this English translation. The French 
original (for Mr. Jonescu writes French with 
singular facility, clearness, and grace) has already 
found many readers, and this version deserves 
to win for it a still larger circle here and in 
America. 

Those of us who in France and the English- 
speaking countries have grown familiar with the 
names of the more prominent actors in the great 
and gloomy drama of the last ten or twelve years, 
must have often wished to know something of 



viii INTRODUCTION 

the personalities that lay behind the names. 
What were their talents, their characters, their 
manners ? What were the ideas and motives 
which prompted either their avowed purposes or 
their secret aims ? In some cases these motives 
may long remain obscure, but in others the 
recorded words and acts are sufficient to enable 
those who were in close touch with them to form a 
just estimate and present to us true portraits, 
provided always that such observers bring dis- 
cernment and impartiality to the task. The 
book is modestly entitled " Some Personal 
Impressions " ; and the descriptions it contains 
are for the most part vigorous sketches rather 
than portraits. Some, however, may be called 
vignettes, more or less finished drawings, each 
consisting of few lines, but those lines sharply 
and firmly drawn. Intermingled with this score 
of personal sketches there are also a few brief 
essays or articles which set before us particular 
scenes, little fragments of history in which the 
author bore a part, all relating to the persons 
who either figured in the war, or were concerned 
with the intrigues from which it sprang. Among 
these we find several German statesmen — Kiderlin 
Waechter, Prince Biilow, Prince Lichnowsky and a 
large number of Austrians, among whom Counts 
Berchtold, Aehrenthal, Goluchowsky, Czernin and 
Mensdorff, are the best known ; the late King 



INTRODUCTION ix 

Charles of Roumania, the German Emperor, 
Eleutherios Venizelos, and, lastly, the most ruth- 
less and unscrupulous ruffian (with the possible 
exception of Trotsky) whom the war has brought 
to light, the Turkish Talaat Pasha. 

These, with some minor personages, make an 
interesting gallery, for though most of them 
are dealt with very briefly — sometimes merely 
by telling an anecdote or reporting a single 
conversation — still in every case a distinct im- 
pression is conveyed. We feel that the man 
described is no longer a name but a creature of 
flesh and blood, with something by which we can 
recognise him and remember him for future use. 
National characteristics are lightly but brightly 
touched. Among the Germans, Kiderlin Waechter 
stands out as in Mr. Jonescu's judgment the 
ablest, and Biilow the cleverest. If the Austrian 
statesmen are, or were, what he paints them (and 
there seems no reason to doubt the general justice 
of his observations), the hideous failure of their 
diplomacy becomes comprehensible. A dynasty 
guided by such servants was fated to perish in 
the storm its folly had raised. Aehrenthal and 
Tisza were at least men of force and ability, 
but an ability which did not exclude bad prin- 
ciples and rash unwisdom. The rest were mostly 
ciphers ; while of Count Berchtold, the descrip- 
tion given by Mr. Jonescu successfully conveys 



x INTRODUCTION 

to the reader that there was nothing to describe, 
at least on the intellectual side. One may pity 
the people which was guided by such statesmen, 
for they were not its choice, but one cannot pity 
the dynasty which did choose them. It well 
deserved to perish, after three centuries of 
pernicious power. 

Besides the illuminative glimpses of curious 
scenes, and the vivacious sketches of notable 
personages, which these pages contain, the reader 
will find in them some contributions to history 
of permanent interest. We are helped to appre- 
hend the views, and comprehend what is now called 
the " mentality " with which the ruling caste in 
Germany entered the war. It has been often 
said of late that the men in whose hands great 
decisions lay were not great enough for the 
fateful issues they had to decide. Quantula 
sapientia regitur mundus seems even truer now 
than it did in the days of Oxenstierna. Among 
all the " Impressions " this book records, that 
is the one which stands out conspicuous. 



Monsieur Poincare 



MONSIEUR POINCARE 

ON New Year's Eve, 1913, I arrived in Paris. 
I was on my way to London, where 
the Balkan Conference was then sitting. 
Negotiations between the Turks and the Balkan 
States had come to a deadlock, and I hoped to 
profit by this to the extent of coming to some 
pacific settlement of our territorial differences 
with Bulgaria. It was my intention to offer the 
support of Roumania to Bulgaria, which at that 
date meant the Balkan league, and if necessary 
to promise military assistance in order to force 
the Turk to give up Adrianople. 

The Powers had no notion what to do. It 
was felt that there was little chance of mere 
collective notes having any success, and as for 
a naval demonstration, which alone could have 
saved the face of Kiamil's government, the 
Powers were too jealous and distrustful of each 
other to act together in this way. On the other 
hand it was certain that the armed resistance of 
Turkey was shattered and that to force her hand 
would really be doing her a kindness. If only 
it had been done then, Turkey would have 
escaped Enver and her present misfortunes. 



4 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

It is useless to repeat what I have so often 
said that the idea of a war with Bulgaria, and 
possibly with all the Balkan States — our tradi- 
tional friends — was utterly repugnant to me. It 
was even possible that such a war might 
bring about the expected European conflagra- 
tion, in which we should find ourselves on the 
side of Austria-Hungary, a prospect that was 
altogether odious to me, for in it I saw the grave 
of our future and of our national ideal. 

I hoped the Bulgars would appreciate the 
situation and would hasten to accept my sug- 
gestions. If only they had done so, peace with 
Turkey would have been signed in the first week 
of January, 1913, the second Balkan war would 
probably not have taken place, and the European 
war would have been averted for an indefinite 
number of years. 

Although my hopes of arriving at an under- 
standing with Bulgaria were high, I took the 
possibility of failure into consideration and real- 
ised that I might want the friendly support of 
the Great Powers. This was why, before leaving 
Bucharest, I intimated to Monsieur Poincare, 
then Prime Minister of France, that I was about 
to visit him. 

II 

M. Poincare received me on the 1st of January, 
1913, at half- past eight in the morning, an hour 
that in Paris is certainly an absurd time for 
an appointment, but I had to go to London in 
the afternoon, and on account of its being New 



MONSIEUR POINCARE 5 

Year's Day, Monsieur Poincare was due at the 
Elysee at ten o'clock for the official ceremonies. 

I asked Monsieur Poincare for the support of 
France in our difficulties with Bulgaria. He 
made the warmest declarations of friendship for 
Roumania ; promised me his own personal co- 
operation, but said, " My action is naturally 
limited by the fact that relations with our ally 
are most cordial while, owing to your military 
convention with Austria and Germany, you will 
be in the enemy's camp if war breaks out. You 
know well," and he could not have spoken with 
greater sincerity, " that we do not want war, 
and are doing everything to avoid it. But if 
our adversaries force us to go to war the fact 
that your 300,000 rifles are on their side cannot 
be a matter of indifference to us." 

As the Treaty between Roumania and the 
Triple Alliance was supposed to be kept secret 
I had to pretend that I knew nothing about the 
obligation he was alluding to. 

The French Prime Minister, who knew the 
situation precisely, then asked me if I could 
assure him that in the event of war — a war that 
France would never provoke — he could hope 
that France and her allies would not find the 
Roumanian army against them. 

Personally I had not believed for many years 
that the Roumanians and Magyars would ever 
fight side by side, but on the 1st of January, 
1913, it was impossible for me to make any valid 
promise in Roumania's name. 

I could only tell Monsieur Poincare that I 



6 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

could not give him an answer, but that if I were 
in his place I should grant Roumania as much 
help as was compatible with my alliances and 
my obligations, and leave it to the future to 
show whether I had acted wisely or not. 

Ill 

The events of 1913 confirmed my beliefs. With 
great clearness I saw that the idea of shedding 
Roumanian blood to glorify Magyarism was such 
an absurdity that no one on earth could give 
effect to it. 

On the 9th of September, 1913, I paid Monsieur 
Poincare another visit. He was then President 
of the Republic. He congratulated me on the 
success of Roumania, and I took occasion to 
say, "On New Year's Day you asked me a question 
which I could not then answer ; I will give you 
your answer to-day. If war does break out — 
and I devoutly hope humanity may be spared such 
a calamity — you will not find the Roumanian 
army in your enemies' camp." 

" Have you cancelled the treaty of alliance ? " 
he asked. 

" I know nothing about any treaty. All I 
know is that the Roumanian army will not be in 
your enemies' camp. I am quite certain about it, 
and if I did not know that we are both believers 
in peace and are doing all we can to preserve it, 
I should say that events will prove me right. 
Let us hope that they may never have occasion 
to do so." 



MONSIEUR POINCARE 7 

" But are you sure to remain long in power? " 
he asked. 

" Far from it, I shall be out of office in two 
months, but that doesn't matter. What I am 
telling you is true, irrespective of what ministers 
compose the government. After what has hap- 
pened this summer no one will be able to make 
Roumanians fight against their will or against 
the dictates of national honour and interest." 



. 



Prince Lichnowsky 



II 

PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 

TWENTY years ago Prince Lichnowsky was 
Secretary to the German Legation in 
Bucharest. 

I knew him in those days as an intelligent 
young man, gay, witty and a real grand seigneur. 
Though a German Diplomat he was Polish by 
origin and had all the adaptability, vivacity and 
brilliance of his race. We got on admirably. 

I did not see him again until early in January, 
1913, when I went to London to try and come to 
an understanding with Monsieur Daneff over 
Bulgar-Roumanian difficulties. 

Prince Lichnowsky had come back into the 
Diplomatic Service after a very long absence. 
He had only done so at the reiterated request of 
the Kaiser, who believed him to be the only man 
capable of succeeding Baron Marschall in London, 
Baron Marschall at that time having the reputa- 
tion of being the ablest diplomat in the German 
service. I may as well say here that in spite of 
his ability Marschall had not been much of a 
success in England. He had lived too long in 
Constantinople to make a good Ambassador at 

St. James's. 

11 



12 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Prince Lichnowsky took his task seriously. 
He spared himself no trouble to win people's 
confidence, and in a short time had accomplished 
marvels in this direction. He was extremely 
frank, and his clear picturesque way of talking 
impressed people. It was he who, in speaking 
to me of the two little bits of Bulgar territory 
that jutted out into our Dobrudja, which Daneff 
was at the time offering me as a complete satis- 
faction for our claims, contemptuously described 
them as " the two dugs of the bitch." 

I will not now describe rny interviews with 
Lichnowsky in 1913. I must admit, however, he 
was more than friendly and kind, and did me 
real services. He went so far even without 
waiting for the sanction of his Government as to 
make a proposal favourable to us at the Balkan 
Conference then sitting in London. I shall have 
something to say about all this another time. 

I must, however, mention two points relating 
to that moment. One day Lichnowsky assured 
me that the relations between England and 
Germany were excellent. The next day Sir E. 
Grey said to me, " If Prince Lichnowsky makes 
the proposal you speak of I shall receive it most 
favourably, as I do everything that comes from the 
German Ambassador. We are on excellent terms." 

This was really remarkable when one thinks 
of the then recent Agadir crisis. I came to the 
conclusion that there was no danger of European 
war, and on the 7th of January, 1913, I wrote 
to King Charles that I was positive the great 
war would not break out yet awhile. 



PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 13 

At that same time Lichnowsky said to me, " We 
will do what we can for you, but our means are 
limited. You should really apply to Vienna, as 
Austria can do a good deal at Sofia if she 
wishes to. I am sure there is something brewing 
between Austria and Bulgaria. I don't know 
exactly what it is, but something is going on." 

In the spring of 1914 I was again in London 
for six days. Prince Lichnowsky gave a luncheon 
in my honour. All the Embassy staff were there, 
including the notorious Kiihlman, then Councillor 
of the Embassy, now Minister at the Hague, who 
at that time was unfortunately corresponding 
with the Kaiser over the head of Lichnowsky 
and was giving false information to Berlin as 
to the state of affairs in England. 

I asked Lichnowsky how matters stood between 
England and Germany, and if he was as pleased 
with things as he had been in January, 1913. 
He replied that he had succeeded in his efforts, 
and that Germany and Great Britain were on 
the best of terms. 

" I told the Kaiser," he said, " that nothing 
could be easier for us than to keep up good re- 
lations with England — because England genuinely 
cares for peace. But in order to do this we 
should never attack or annoy France, because in 
that case England would back her to the last man 
and the last shilling, and, as it is not to our interest 
to irritate France, you see that our relations with 
England will remain of the best." 

My impressions accorded with those of the 
German Ambassador. I felt that England would 



14 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

not tolerate an attack on France, but putting 
that aside it was certain that in London the 
desire was to be on good terms with Germany. 
In that one saw the guarantee of peace. 

On July the 12th, 1914, I again arrived in 
London. I saw Lichnowsky and discussed the 
Albanian question with him, which had by then 
become disquieting, and also the silence of Austria 
as to what line she was going to take over the 
Serajevo drama. Lichnowsky felt that Austria 
had something up her sleeve. His Austrian col- 
league Count Mensdorff was uncommunicative. 
Lichnowsky had been in Berlin since the Serajevo 
assassination, and he was not pleased with what 
he had seen in the Wilhelmstrasse. " They 
are giving Austria a free hand," he said, " with- 
out thinking where it may lead us. I warned 
them, but I am not happy about it, and am 
beginning to regret that I did not stay in Berlin." 
Lichnowsky did not conceal the fact that Tchirsky, 
the German Ambassador at Vienna, was en- 
couraging the bellicose tendency of Austria. 

Lichnowsky's apprehensions were well grounded. 
The German Chancellor, Bethman Hollweg, had 
never been well up in questions of foreign politics 
— far from it. As for Von Jagow, I knew that 
at the time he was in Rome he had told one of 
his colleagues that in the Balkan incidents he 
saw the proof of the approaching disintegration 
of Austria-Hungary, and that it was a disturbing 
problem. With a fixed idea like that in his head 
it would be easy to make mistakes. 

On Wednesday, July the 22nd, I dined with 



PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 15 

Baroness Deichman, sister of Sir Maurice de 
Bunsen, British Ambassador in Vienna. The 
house was one of the social centres of London 
and lent itself most favourably to an Anglo- 
German understanding. I knew that I was to 
meet Lichnowsky, who had expressed a wish to 
talk to me that very day. 

After dinner I went with Lichnowsky into a 
sitting-room in which there hung a fine portrait 
of Sir Maurice de Bunsen, painted, if I am not 
mistaken, by the great English artist, Herkomer. 

Lichnowsky was in Court dress ; he was to 
see the King that evening. I do not know what 
the occasion was. He told me he had not yet 
succeeded in finding out the text of the demands 
Austria was making of Serbia, but that he had 
learnt enough to know that they would be very 
very harsh. He knew that amongst other things 
Austria had asked for the suppression of a 
nationalist society in Serbia, and that alone 
seemed to him to be going pretty far. He 
earnestly begged me to suggest to the Roumanian 
Government that they should use any influence 
they had at Belgrade to get the Austrian note, 
no matter what it was, accepted by Serbia. " I 
promise you," he said, " that in the carrying of 
it out, the Serbs can whittle it down or evade 
the conditions, and we can see to it that nothing 
is said. I take that on myself. We must get 
round this crisis somehow. For instance, the 
order to suppress a patriotic society need not 
really mean anything. In a few months they 
could resurrect it under another name." 



16 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

I promised him to do what I could. That 
very night I telegraphed what the German 
Ambassador had communicated to me to Monsieur 
Bratiano, the then President of the Roumanian 
Council. 

II 

On Friday, July the 24th, the Austrian Ulti- 
matum was published. In reading the Times 
I said to my wife, " This means European war ; 
we must get back to Roumania." 

I went to see Lichnowsky in the morning. He 
was at the Foreign Office. I went to his house 
later and found him very much upset. Obviously 
the Austrian note had exceeded his expectations. 
He was, however, firmly convinced that there was 
no danger of war. He was sure that some way 
of preserving peace would be found. He told 
me with an ironic smile that he had been in- 
structed to advocate to the English Cabinet the 
" localisation " of the question at issue between 
Serbia and Austria. He did not express his 
opinion of this folly, but it was evident that he 
thought it ridiculous. He was so certain of 
peace that he asked me if I were going direct to 
Aix-les-Bains from Brighton or whether I should 
return to London for one night. When I an- 
swered that it would depend on the political 
situation he said good-bye, being certain that I 
should go straight on to Aix from Brighton. 
He was so assured in bearing that I telegraphed 
to Paris and Aix to announce my arrival. 

At Brighton in the afternoon of Saturday 



PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 17 

and again on Sunday I received communications 
from London that shewed me that Lichnowsky 
was deceiving himself and that Tchirsky, the 
German Ambassador at Vienna, was pushing 
Austria on to take up an overbearing attitude. 
I telegraphed to my friend Mishu, Roumanian 
Minister in London, asking him to book places 
for me in the Ostend Express for Tuesday morn- 
ing the 28th of July, and I informed my brother 
at Aix-les-Bains that I had given up my journey 
thither. 

I returned to London on Monday morning 
the 27th July. From the station where my 
friend Mishu met me I went straight to Prince 
Lichnowsky and told him of my agitation and 
of my decision to go back to Roumania. He 
told me I was wrong, that there was no possibility 
of war, not a hundred to one chance of it ; that 
in my place he would stay on in London because 
it would be so tiresome to go from London to 
Aix-les-Bains via Bucharest. Insisting on the 
danger of war, I said, " It is all the more serious — 
because we must not delude ourselves as to the 
attitude of England. In spite of the pacifism 
of its Government, England will certainly come 
in." 

Lichnowsky, forgetting what he had said to 
me in the spring, said, " Of that I am not so sure 
as you are." " You are wrong," I said. " I know 
the English. No-one in the world will be able to 
prevent them mixing themselves up in a war 
provoked with so much injustice. If you believe 
the contrary you are profoundly mistaken." 



18 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

He went on repeating that it might be possible, 
but that he was not so sure of England's coming 
in as I was. That is the one weakness that I 
found in Lichnowsky's judgment at that time. 
Of course like a great many other people he had 
been blinded by the Irish question. 

I followed Lichnowsky's advice. I gave up 
my tickets for Tuesday the 28th, but being more 
distrustful than the German Ambassador I took 
places on the express for the following day, 
Wednesday the 29th. It turned out to be the 
last through train. 

On the morning of Tuesday the 28th, when I 
saw Lichnowsky, he was a changed man. He 
had begun to lose confidence. He only saw a 
seven to three chance of peace, and although he 
assured me of his hope that humanity would 
be spared such a nameless folly, he said, " Go 
back to Roumania. There are none too many 
good brains about; don't deprive your country 
of yours. I hope you will soon come back, but 
I understand your going." 

I saw him for the last time in the afternoon of 
Tuesday the 28th. He was pale — a man undone. 
He told me the peace of the world hung by a 
thread. I have seldom seen anyone so overcome. 

I had a profound conviction that this man 
was sincere, that he had genuinely worked for 
peace, that he had served his country with all 
his strength, and that for all the calamities 
unchained by the black executioner of Buda- 
pesth and the criminals of Berlin he deserves 
no blame. 



PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 19 

I hope Prince Lichnowsky, for whose confidence 
and friendship I am grateful, will forgive me for 
witnessing to history in such detail. The day 
will come when the German people — once more 
sober — will remember that their true servants 
are those who did their best to save their country 
from the torrent of universal hate unloosed 
against it by this war — a war naked of all excuse. 



Count Berchtold 



Ill 

COUNT BERCHTOLD 

I HAVE only had two political conversations 
with Count Berchtold during my life, but 
they were enough to enable me to take the 
measure of the man. After each of them I 
wondered to myself how it was possible that 
such a person could be Minister of Foreign 
Affairs to a Great Power. The phenomenon was 
explained to me by a Viennese journalist. " In 
our country it is necessary for a Count to succeed 
a Count." I state this for what it is worth, but 
I have never succeeded in finding a better reason. 

Count Berchtold is a fine-looking man, if one 
admires that type of person. Gentlemanly, ex- 
tremely gentlemanly, with good manners — and 
that is all there is to him. I should have nothing 
to add if I wanted to paint his portrait. 

I was motoring in Northern Italy when Count 
Berchtold went to Sinaia in September, 1912, to 
pay a visit to King Charles. A telegram from 
Sinaia caught me at Venice. In it a friend 
informed me that it was considered advisable 
that I should stop at Vienna on my way home 
and see Count Berchtold. I understood this to 
mean that King Charles thought a change in the 

23 



24 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Austrian Government imminent and that he 
wished me to be in personal touch with the new 
director of Austrian policy. I acquainted Count 
Berchtold with my wish to visit him, and he came 
in from the country to Vienna in order to re- 
ceive me. 

We chatted for an hour. He tried to explain 
to me his notorious circular on the decentralis- 
ation of the Ottoman Empire — the circular that 
precipitated the outbreak of the Balkan War. 
I could make nothing of it. He complained 
that his intentions had been misunderstood every- 
where. He laid himself out to reveal them to 
me, but again I did not understand him any the 
better. Was the business too intricate, or was 
I too limited ? I don't really know. 

Speaking to him of the ticklish condition of 
Balkan Affairs, I said, " If you can keep the 
peace for another couple of months the situation 
will be saved. Mountain wars are not under- 
taken after November." " Why should the 
peace be kept for two months only ? I am sure 
that peace is in no way threatened in the Balkans. 
You can be certain of that," he replied con- 
fidently. Did he want to mystify me or did he 
not know the real situation ? 

In the course of conversation I spoke of the 
folly of competitive naval armaments and asked 
why Austria too should be travelling down the 
same road. " Why," I asked, " do you want a 
big fleet ? You have no Colonies ; you never 
will have any Colonies, and your oversea trade 
will never be of much importance. What good 



COUNT BERCHTOLD 25 

is a fleet to you ? If you are seeking security 
against Italy you are committing a fundamental 
error. You will never be able to fight Italy on 
the sea, not only because she will always be your 
superior, but also because, in the event of such 
a conflict, she would be the ally of France and 
England, and your Dreadnoughts would never 
even put to sea. If, on the other hand, you expect 
to be on Italy's side she will not need your fleet. 
She would prefer to increase her own. Besides," 
I added, " I don't understand what Germany 
is up to either," and thereupon I repeated to 
him what I had said to Kiderlen-Waechter in 
Berlin some ten months previously. 

In reply Count Berchtold explained to me 
what I had already suspected, — that the increase 
of the Austrian Navy had been demanded by 
Germany, and that the day was coming when 
the Austro-German Fleets would have a real 
superiority over the English Fleet. He recog- 
nised that England could always build more 
ships than the two Teutonic Empires, but he 
was sure that she would soon be short of crews. 
" With their system of voluntary enlistment the 
supply of recruits will soon fail, whereas we with 
our compulsory service can always get as many 
men as we want. Then we could attack and 
destroy England." 

I listened with amazement to this Minister of 
a Great Power. He did not seem to realise that 
the day England found she could not get enough 
volunteers for her Navy, that day she would 
introduce compulsory service, but that she never 



26 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

could allow herself to be outclassed by Germany 
at sea. 

II 

The second time I saw Count Berchtold was 
on the 11th or 12th of September, 1913. I am 
not quite sure of the day. I rather think, how- 
ever, it was the 11th. He began by making 
most ample apologies both on his own account 
and on that of Count Tisza for an incident that 
had recently occurred at Deva, when the small 
Roumanian flags on my wife's motor had been 
torn off by Hungarian police. We then spoke 
of the great political crisis we had just been 
through. He told me he had been much criti- 
cised and had been accused of not having pro- 
tected the rights and position of Austria-Hungary. 
I replied — in accordance with my genuine con- 
viction — that even if it were really true that the 
designs on Salonika attributed to Austria were 
but a calumny, Austria had lost nothing through 
the Balkan crisis, that even her caprices had 
been satisfied, and that therefore she had 
absolutely no cause for grievance. I added that 
he could, if he would, establish good relations 
with Serbia, more especially as for at least 
fifteen or twenty years to come the Serbians 
would be more than busy with their newly 
acquired territory. I assured him that this 
was the genuine belief of Monsieur Pasitch, and 
that if Austria would but show herself a little 
less hostile everything would once more go 
smoothly. 



COUNT BERCHTOLD 27 

We talked, too, of Albania, which he looked upon 
as his own creation, and seemed surprised that I 
knew the Albanians and Albanian affairs as well 
as I did. I must own that on this subject he 
was very well informed, but all the same he 
seemed to me completely deluded. For example, 
he told me that at that moment law and order 
in Albania was better assured than in any other 
country in Europe ! 

This second conversation did not make me 
change my opinion of Count Berchtold. I am 
quite persuaded that from the death of Francis- 
Ferdinand it was Tisza and not Berchtold who 
directed Austrian policy. He has been the 
plaything of the really strong man. Far from 
this being an excuse for him, it means that he 
is doubly guilty, for no one has the right to 
accept a position that is above his capacity. 

I am sure we shall never hear of Count 
Berchtold in European politics again. That 
episode is ended. 



"The Marquis P allavicini 



IV 

THE MARQUIS PALLAVICINI 

A PURE Magyar answers to this Italian name. 
In his youth the Marquis Pallavicini must 
have been an Imperialist, like so many 
other Hungarian aristocrats, but ?t the time I knew 
him he was already a Magyar in the full accept- 
ance of the word. This is all the more remark- 
able as it seems the Marquis speaks pretty 
indifferent Magyar. He has made up for this by 
bringing up his sons, the children of a charming 
Englishwoman, to be such chauvinists that they 
would never even learn their mother's tongue. 

Like all good Hungarians, the Marquis Pallavi- 
cini has always been an ultra-Serbophobe. It 
gave him great pleasure to describe to me how, 
when he was Minister at Belgrade, whenever 
the poor Serbian Government resisted any demand 
of Austria, he would discover that all the Serbian 
pigs were stricken with sudden illness, and how 
directly the Serbian Government gave in, the 
pigs were instantly and miraculously cured, so 
that their export might be resumed. 

No mere words can do justice to the physiog- 
nomy of the Marquis Pallavicini, when he was 
explaining these incidents in Austro-Serbian 

31 



32 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

relations or rather in the martyrdom of Serbia. 
A smile which was almost a grin pervaded his 
face, his short-sighted eyes closed till they 
became invisible, and his piping voice took on a 
Mephistophelian tone. The very wagging of his 
head, his short awkward gestures, all seemed to 
diffuse a smell of sulphur ! 

The Marquis Pallavicini is the antithesis of 
the traditional Austrian diplomat. Usually such 
people are good to look at, they have a presence 
which impresses the unwary, and one must see 
a good deal of them to understand their remark- 
able emptiness. To put it shortly, they look more 
intelligent than they really are. 

In the case of Pallavicini it is just the opposite. 
His face is not his fortune. He looks rather a 
simpleton, and yet one would be wrong to trust 
in his case to appearances. Pallavicini may not 
be a great mind, but at any rate he is a very 
observing, very well-informed, and a very subtle 
person. In a word, the Austro- Hungarian Am- 
bassador to Constantinople is a much abler man 
than he looks, and one would make a blunder if 
in dealing with him one judged by appearances. 

II 

I have had relations with the Marquis Pallavicini 
for years. We have talked together for hours. 
Of ail these conversations three only present 
themselves to my mind when I recall the past. 

The first concerned the domestic politics of 
Hungary. It was a few weeks prior to the well- 



THE MARQUIS PALLAVICINI 33 

remembered general election when the Tisza 
Government was beaten by the coalition. We 
were both lunching with Count Larisch at Bucha- 
rest. Pallavicini believed that Tisza would be suc- 
cessful. I made a bet with him that the coali- 
tion would triumph and win easily, and he 
never understood how it was that I guessed 
correctly. Pallavicini was completely unable to 
understand the compelling force of parliamentary 
freedom for which the coalition fought, and that 
is why he was at that time an Imperialist. 

Our second talk took place at Constantinople 
on my return from Athens in November, 1913. 
The occasion was a reception at the Roumanian 
Legation. Pallavicini wanted a tSte-d-tete with 
me which I could not refuse him. In this inter- 
view, which followed one that I had had with 
Monsieur de Giers, the Russian representative, 
the Austro - Hungarian Ambassador to Turkey 
strongly advised me to try and improve our 
relations with Bulgaria. I replied that I asked 
nothing better, but that as the Bulgarians were 
discontented and we were satisfied an understand- 
ing between us was unthinkable, unless it were 
motived by an attack on some third party ; and 
I concluded by saying, "An understanding with 
Bulgaria is all very well, but at whose expense 
is it to be ? " "At that of Serbia, of course," 
he replied. This was early in November, 1913 ! 

At the third and last conversation I had with 
the Marquis Pallavicini — which will without doubt 
for ever be the last — I spoke so much that I 
feel awkward about referring to it. 



34 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

It was the spring of 1914. Ever since our 
military promenade into Bulgaria the Austro- 
Hungarian press had been irrepressible. At 
Budapesth two things had been noted, both equally 
disagreeable to the Magyar oligarchy. One was 
that the Roumanian expedition across the Danube 
indicated the first step in our emancipation from 
the Austro-Hungarian yoke ; the other that 
nothing had done more for the greater Roumania 
idea than the new prestige which free Roumania 
had just acquired. Our soldiers' phrase in the 
summer of 1913 was, " We pass through Bulgaria 
in order to get to Transylvania." This phrase 
expressed a profound truth which even Budapesth 
could not but realise. The Austrian press opened 
a most comic compaign on the question of Austro- 
Roumanian relations. Were they the same ? 
And if they were chilled how far would the con- 
gealing process go ? And what ought to be done 
to make relations once more idyllic ? An enormous 
amount of ink was wasted in Vienna and Buda- 
pesth. At Bucharest they were regarded as un- 
wholesome, people had had enough of these false 
declarations of love, which after all were none 
too decent, as they presupposed an unnatural 
attachment on our part. 

The Austrians decided to send Pallavicini to 
Bucharest. He had once lived five years amongst 
us, and had the reputation of being a convinced 
anti-Roumanian. They said we could not de- 
ceive a man like him as they alleged we had done 
in the case of so many others. 

Pallavicini arrived at Bucharest in the spring 



THE MARQUIS PALLAVICINI 35 

of 1914. He stayed there three days ; visited 
King Charles and our politicians, and went away 
annoyed. Naturally he came to see me. He 
stayed more than an hour, and frankly told me 
that he wanted to know whether our alliance 
with Austria still held good, because if not the 
Austrians would have to apply elsewhere — to 
Bulgaria, in short. He told me he had not 
taken this step yet, which was a lie, but that he 
would be obliged to do it if he could not count 
on us. I answered him with diplomatic polite- 
ness, which meant nothing. When he returned 
to the charge I said nothing was more intolerable 
than to be asked every moment, " Do you love 
me ? " and that that was what the Austrian 
Press was doing all the time. I did not conceal 
from him that this error in taste had ended by 
really annoying us. 

" You have seen the King," I said, " and you 
know what his power is. You must at any rate 
be pleased with the King." He said " No," that 
the King had declared to him that Roumania 
would range herself against those who provoked 
war and that that was not good enough for him. 

And when I put it to him that I no longer 
understood the hang of things, as for thirty 
years it had been dinned into us that it was 
Russia who wished to provoke war and Austria- 
Hungary that desired nothing but peace, he dished 
up to me the old theme of preventive war. He 
explained to me that it was impossible for 
Austria-Hungary to remain in the position in 
which Balkan events had placed her, that Serbia 



36 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

was a menace to her, and that sooner or later 
war must break out. Austria might soon be led 
to provoke it herself. 

It was all very well for me to marshal my 
arguments against the folly of preventive war 
and to try and prove the absurdity of talking of 
the Serbian danger to the Dual Empire ; nothing 
was of any avail. The Marquis insisted at 
length that it was necessary for Austria to bring 
about a European war. I have already said 
that he repeated the word " war " five times 
during our interview. I made a pencil mark 
each time he said it. 

This conversation with the Marquis Pallavicini 
was one of the gleams that lit up my mind on 
the European situation. Throughout the Balkan 
crisis I had many proofs that Austria-Hungary 
was trying to provoke war at any cost, but 
since the treaty of Bucharest I had hoped that 
the storm was overpast. The Marquis made me 
realise, however, that I was mistaken. 

Magyar policy was so well served by the 
assassin Princip that if I had the same mentality 
as the politicians of Budapesth I should say that 
they had suggested to him his useless crime. 

It would be an exaggeration to suggest that 
the Marquis Pallavicini was one of the authors 
of the world war, but he was one of the most 
active and adroit of the auxiliaries. On this 
account he may find a place in history. 



Count Goluchowsky 



V 

COUNT GOLUCHOWSKY 

1HAVE very agreeable memories of my inter- 
course with Count Goluchowsky. He is a 
great gentleman and his manners are perfect. 
Moreover, during his long stay in Roumania he 
did his best to minimise the painful side of the 
inevitable clash between Roumanian and Magyar 
interests. I only had one discussion with him 
that was really disagreeable, and then he forgot 
himself so far as to tell me straight out that the 
capitulations were still in force in Roumania. 
The discussion became so desperately animated 
that I thought personal intercourse would be 
impossible in the future. Count Goluchowsky 
quite understood the mistake he had made, just 
as on another occasion he understood a still even 
greater blunder he made in the case of the late 
Alexander Lahovary. The papers dealing with 
this incident should be in the possession of 
Madame Lahovary. 

Everyone was grateful to Count Goluchowsky 
for the really pacific orientation he had given 
to Austrian policy during his long tenure of 
office. He pushed his pacifism to the point 
of inventing a kind of entente of European 

39 



40 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Powers to resist the American danger, a clumsy 
scheme that made people laugh at his expense, 
but which at any rate showed that he wished 
to preserve peace amongst the nations of 
Europe. 

It is true that the Emperor Francis Joseph, 
who was then full of vigour, had made the appoint- 
ment of Count Goluchowsky to the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs conditional on his not making 
trouble for him, and allowing him to finish his 
long reign in peace. 

The only weakness Count Goluchowsky gave 
way to at the Ballplatz was his exaggerated 
hatred of Serbia. He utterly despised the Serbs. 
His aristocratic prejudices had something to 
say to this ; the Serbs were after all to him a 
nation of uncouth peasants. Many times did 
King Charles point out to Count Goluchowsky 
that he was making a great mistake in refusing 
consideration to the Serbs, and many times did 
the Count say that it would only require two 
monitors at Belgrade to bring 5t the worthy 
Serbs " to reason. 

In spite of this it would be extremely unjust 
not to recognise that Count Goluchowsky, who 
had never posed as a star of the first magnitude, 
filled his post of Foreign Minister with distinc- 
tion. He was not as provocative as Count 
Aehrenthal, who, though a man of clearly 
superior capacity, was also liable to make big 
mistakes. 

Count Goluchowsky inspired me with the sort 
of esteem that one has for a man who has played 



COUNT GOLUCHOWSKY 41 

an important role well and who can bear dis- 
grace with dignity. 

II 

I had not seen Count Goluchowsky for many 
years when I ran into him in the dining-room of 
the Hotel Bristol at Vienna at eight o'clock on 
Thursday, the 30th of July, 1914. I was on my 
way from London to Bucharest, and was agonised 
by the thought of the great disaster which might 
at any moment overwhelm humanity. 

Count Goluchowsky was sitting with a young 
Austrian whom I had met before. He wore a 
miniature of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 
the button-hole of his short dinner jacket ; this 
was a characteristic detail. If one happens to 
be one of the twenty or thirty persons who have 
been honoured with this decoration, it would 
seem to me a dreadful error in taste to wear it 
in miniature on a dinner jacket, and it surprised 
me that a man who represented the last word in 
breeding could do such a thing. 

I went up to the Count, and we naturally 
talked of the great evil that was menacing the 
world. He answered with a smile that was 
almost jovial that the worthy Serbs would now 
be brought to their senses and that this affair 
concerned Austria and nobody else. When I 
told him that it was no longer a Serbian question 
and that if Austria did not act reasonably Russia 
and France would be forced to intervene, and 
that that would mean a European war, he re- 
plied with the same smile, the same gay light- 



42 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

heartedness — and his gaiety was of a kind I had 
seldom seen in him — " So much the worse for 
the worthy Russians and the worthy French." 
I went on to say that that was not all ; that I 
had just come from London, and could assure 
him that, although the English Government was 
the most pacific in history, the logic of events 
would prove stronger than the will of Govern- 
ments, and that if Austria persisted in its over- 
bearing attitude, England would fight to her last 
man and her last shilling. 

The smile on Count Goluchowsky's face ex- 
panded, and he said, " So much the worse for 
the worthy English." 

At that moment my last meeting with Sir 
Edward Grey on July 21, 1914, passed like a 
vision before my eyes. On that occasion he had 
spoken to me with austere gravity, saying that 
the situation gave cause for deep anxiety, but 
that in spite of it he hoped for peace ; because 
for his part he could not imagine that the man 
existed who could shoulder the responsibility of 
provoking a calamity which would spell the 
bankruptcy of civilisation, and of which no one 
in the world could foresee the consequences. 
There came another vision — that of Monsieur 
Poincare, who on the 1st of January, 1913, 
spoke to me with most poignant emotion of the 
terrible eventuality of a European war, a war in 
which he refused to believe and against which 
he was working with all his strength. 

In memory I re-read Kiderlen-Waechter's last 
letter to me, written in November, 1912, a few 



COUNT GOLUCHOWSKY 43 

months before his death, the letter of a man 
who, most unfortunately for Germany and for 
the world, was no longer with us, a letter which 
stated that he was convinced that peace would be 
maintained because at the last moment the whole 
world would hesitate to embark on a venture 
which this time was a question of life or death 
for all. 

With the eyes of my soul I saw Grey, Poincare, 
Kiderlen ; with my physical eyes I saw the 
broad smile and the indescribable levity of Count 
Goluchowsky. And I became more than ever 
confirmed in my belief that Vienna, now a mere 
suburb of Budapesth, was the criminal, the great 
criminal, in that it was ready to plunge humanity 
at any moment into the unspeakable horror of 
war. 



August 2, 1 9 14 



VI 

AUGUST 2, 1914 

1 ARRIVED back at Sinai a from London at 
11.30 a.m. on Sunday, the 2nd of August. 
Germany had declared war on Russia the 
previous evening, so the horrible slaughter was 
about to begin. On the Saturday evening in 
Bucharest I had already heard (in a way that I 
shall divulge one day) that a Privy Council was to 
be held at Sinaia on Monday, the 3rd of August, 
that this Privy Council had been postponed for 
forty-eight hours in order that I might be present 
at it, and that King Charles was insisting that 
Roumania should go into the war on the side 
of Austria and Germany. 

I am keeping back for a future occasion my 
account of the conversations I had on the evening 
of Saturday, the 1st of August, at Bucharest, on 
Sunday, the 2nd of August, at the Sinaia station 
on my arrival, and still more important those of 
Sunday afternoon. As I was leaving the station 
an invitation reached me to go and lunch at the 
Royal Palace at one o'clock. There was barely 
time to go to my villa and dress, my poor villa 
that no longer exists. 

I realised that in order to convert me to his 



48 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

ideas the King was about to make an onslaught 
on me. Less than a month ago in that same 
Palace the King had confided to me the great 
secret — to wit, that the Emperor William had 
decided to bring about a European war, which 
would not take place, however, for three or 
four years. On that occasion the King had gone 
so far as to explain to me that this breathing 
space of three years would suffice to complete 
both our constitutional reforms and our military 
preparations. 

As I had made up my mind to face him with 
an absolutely non possumus attitude at the Privy 
Council the following day, I was anxious to 
avoid argument, which must always be a painful 
business with an elderly Monarch, and I made 
up my mind that during luncheon I would give 
the talk a turn that would leave him no ray of 
hope. 

Hardly had I sat down next to Queen Elizabeth 
at the luncheon table than I found I was in a 
house divided against itself. It was obvious that 
the King was more than worried, that the Queen 
was more bellicose than the King, and that the 
Crown Princess, now the reigning Queen Marie, 
was dead against the policy of her uncle and 
aunt, and did not conceal it from them. It even 
seemed to me that tears had recently been shed 
in that Royal Palace. 

It was the Queen who first began to speak 
on the burning question of war. I told her that 
I was sure that war had been inevitable since 
the day Austria had addressed her infamous 



AUGUST 2, 1914 49 

ultimatum to Serbia, and that I knew the ulti- 
matum was the work of the Magyars, of Tisza 
Forgasch, Berchtold, who had the support and 
collaboration of Tchirsky, the German Ambas- 
sador at Vienna. I added as a self-evident truth 
that a German victory meant a Hungarian 
victory, and therefore was not compatible with 
maintaining the independence of the Kingdom 
of Roumania. The King, who sat opposite, and 
was listening with fixed attention, understood 
me, and that is why, as I shall explain presently, 
he spared me from the onslaught I wished to 
avoid. 

Intelligent as she was and though really a woman 
above the average, the Queen was not sufficiently 
versed in politics to understand a word of this. 
She was all for explaining that a Magyar victory 
would mean nothing for a very long time to 
come, etc. . . . When I told her again of my 
extreme anxiety, in view of the fact that Germany 
had such a formidable force at her disposal and 
that if she were successful it would be the end 
of Roumania, she passed on to another subject. 

She asked me what I thought would be the 

probable consequences of such a war. I answered 

—with all eyes upon me— that no human being 

would be presumptuous enough to say he knew 

or could even guess what all the consequences 

of such a war might be. " I know, however," 

I added, « what four of them will be, and these 

four I will explain to you in a few words. The 

first consequence will be a revival of international 

hatreds on such a scale as Europe has not seen 
j.i. ~ 



50 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

for centuries. This is as sure as the night follows 
the day. 

" The second consequence will be a sudden 
veering of opinion towards the ideas of the 
Extreme Left, what we call socialist ideas. 

" Of course in the long run nothing that is 
inherently absurd can triumph, but there is 
bound in all countries to be a trend to the Ex- 
treme Left, once the unloosing of this appalling 
catastrophe has made the governing classes 
appear more incapable in the eyes of the 
masses than they have hitherto believed them 
to be. 

" In the third place, Madam, there will be 
what I can only describe as a cataract of crowns. 
Your Majesty has so often told me you are a 
Republican that you will hardly be surprised at 
this prophecy. Only those Monarchies which 
are in truth hereditary presidencies of Republics, 
like the British Royal House, have any chance 
of escaping this dreadful flood, the flood that 
must inevitably rise out of a war engineered by 
absolute Monarchs." 

I also explained to the Queen that as yet 
another result of the war, the Revolutionary 
movement, which for several decades had ceased 
to be political and had become economic, would 
inevitably become political once more. 

" And lastly," I added, " this war will precipitate 
by at least half-a-century the establishment of 
America in the moral hegemony of the white 
race, an achievement inevitable in any case, but 
which the war will hasten." 






AUGUST 2, 1914 51 

My fourth statement provoked animated dis- 
cussion. I said I saw nothing in this event to 
object to, as the most interesting experience 
humanity had as yet seriously embarked on was 
this new effort in civilisation on the part of the 
United States ; since it would mean a civilisation 
without prejudices, without castes, without mon- 
archical or aristocratic institutions, and without 
historic quarrels. 

A few days later I published four articles 
developing these ideas with the titles " The 
Hatreds," " The Movement to the Left," " The 
Cataract of Crowns," and " The Coming of 
America." 

When I think of this date, the 2nd of August, 
1914, already so remote, I wonder how it is that 
these conclusions, which at the time appeared 
to me self-evident, were not so to the world in 
general, and I reflect once again how tenacious 
on most of us is the grip of the ideas of the past. 

After luncheon we took coffee in the great hall, 
and I noticed that the King was hesitating 
between his wish to talk to me and his fear of 
hearing too soon the refusal for which my animated 
and provocative conversation at luncheon had 
prepared him. 

Before the King spoke to me the Crown Prin- 
cess, now the reigning Queen, came up to me 
with Queen Elizabeth and asked me whether or 
no England would remain neutral in the war. It 
should not be forgotten that this was Sunday, 
and that it was on the previous Wednesday I 
had left London. As the Princess spoke to me 



52 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

in English I replied in English, saying that her 
question surprised me, as she must know as well 
as I did that England, as in Napoleon's day, 
would go into the war with her last man and her 
last shilling. In a nervous voice she then said, 
" You hear what he says, aunt," and turning to 
me, " That is what I tell them all the time, and 
they refuse to understand it. They understand 
nothing in this house." She then went away 
with the Queen. 

A few minutes later the King addressed me : 
" You know you must bring two of your friends 
to the Privy Council to-morrow. Whom have 
you selected ? " 

" I have asked several to come to Sinaia, 
Sir," I replied, "and I will make my choice to- 
morrow morning." 

"Oh well," said the King, "the selection 
doesn't really matter, for your party at any rate 
is disciplined." As I still did not appear to 
understand, the King added, " You have always 
said that if ever we went to war we should have 
to begin by publishing all our treaties of alliance." 
" Yes, Sir," I replied, " and if because of a treaty 
honestly interpreted we were genuinely forced to 
go to war, they must be published, because 
before everything a nation must honour its 
own signature." 

This time the King understood, and resigned 
himself to the inevitable. He knew that as 
Germany had provoked war we were bound 
neither by the letter nor the spirit of the 
treaties. 



AUGUST 2, 1914 53 

The next day at the Crown Council he tried 
to put another interpretation on the text of the 
treaties, but on this Sunday, the 2nd of August, 
he attempted nothing of the kind. 

Many of my recollections of the four terrible 
years are as sharp and clear as at the moment 
the events happened. There are few that have 
remained in my memory so distinctly as this 
luncheon of the 2nd of August, 1914, in the Royal 
Palace at Sinaia. 



Kiderlen- Waechter 



VII 

KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 

I 

FOR more than ten years I was very intimate 
with the late Kiderlen-Waechter. That is 
to say, I had opportunities of seeing him 
exactly as he was and to know both his good and 
his bad qualities. Above all Kiderlen was a great 
intellectual force. There was no doubt about it. 
One could not be often in his company without 
realising that one had to do with the kind of 
mind which is an ornament to the human race. 
Kiderlen was nearly all mind. Not that he was 
lacking in heart, for during his life he gave un- 
doubted proofs of deep and unchanging attach- 
ment towards certain people. He loved quietude 
and adored animals. But taking him all in all, 
one can without doing him an injustice say that 
Kiderlen was neither a sentimentalist nor an 
idealist — but that he was in the last resort a sound 
working mind, though naturally a mind which 
was representative of his country and his time. 

He had been under the influence of Bismarck 
as well as under that of Hoist ein, who, like Riche- 
lieu's Pere Joseph, played a part behind the 

57 



58 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

scenes out of all proportion to his nominal posi- 
tion. From those early associates Kiderlen 
derived a certain vein of brutality, the mention 
of which cannot be omitted. Moreover, he lent 
himself readily to advertisement, because he 
believed it to be the indispensable adjunct of 
all political action. It was he and he alone who 
framed the famous ultimatum to Russia during 
the Bosnian crisis, although he was at the time 
only Minister at Bucharest on leave at Berlin. 
"I knew the Russians were not ready for war, 
that they could not go to war in any case, and 
I wanted to make what capital I could out of 
this knowledge. I wished to show them that 
Germany, which had been in Russian leading 
strings since 1815, was now free of them. Never 
would Schoen and Co. have ventured to do what 
I did on my own responsibility." It was in 
this way that he explained to me his over- 
emphasis of Germany's action in this case, an 
emphasis that contributed appreciably to the 
unrest in Europe. 

Kiderlen never wanted to go to the Foreign 
Office. " The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 
our Government," he said, " is the worst of all 
posts. If a thing succeeds the Chancellor takes 
the credit, if it fails the blame lies on the Secretary 
of State." What he would have really liked 
was the Embassy at Constantinople. By a 
whim of the Emperor it was snatched from 
under his nose and given to Wangenheim, whom 
the Kaiser often met at Corfu. 

Few people know of the way in which Kiderlen 



KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 59 

was appointed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
The story is worth telling. When Bethmann- 
Hollweg, by the pure caprice of the Kaiser, was 
appointed Chancellor of the Empire he knew 
nothing at all about foreign politics. Naturally 
he looked out for someone who did, and hoping 
to find the right man in Kiderlen he asked him 
for a report on the political world situation. 
Kiderlen at the time was Minister at Bucharest, 
but doing duty at Berlin. I never saw the 
report he produced at that time, though I knew 
of its existence. Since then I have been told 
that it was copied by Herr von Busche, who 
was at the time German Minister in Roumania. 
Bethmann-Hollweg read the report, and promptly 
told the Emperor that he would only consent to 
remain Chancellor if Kiderlen was appointed 
Foreign Minister. 

The Emperor had to give in. I say " give in," 
because it was some years since Kiderlen had 
been in the Kaiser's good graces. Once he had 
been greatly appreciated in that quarter on 
account of his clear thinking and vivacity. No 
one knew better than he how to tell spicy stories, 
and the Emperor, who is very fond of them, never 
got tired of listening to them. But one day the 
Kaiser chaffed Kiderlen on some private matter. 
Kiderlen showed himself offended, and his reply 
was such that he at once fell from royal favour. 

One must remember that Kiderlen was exceed- 
ingly free in manner with the Kaiser. He was 
no courtier and never nattered anyone, and to him 
the appreciation and friendship of his Sovereign 



60 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

seemed to be essentially the same as the friend- 
ship of other people. Kiderlen was perfectly 
direct with the Kaiser, so direct that he flatly 
refused to submit to certain conditions that the 
Kaiser wished to impose on him at the time of 
his appointment to the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs. " I shall go to the Foreign Office to do 
as I think right in that post or I shall not go 
there at all," was his proud reply, and he had 
his way. 

In the course of a conversation in 1911, which 
I will speak of again later on, he said to me, 
" If I am alive and in office there will be no war 
between us and England. If ever he decides 
differently he will have to find another man. 
I allow no one to domineer over my conscience." 

This sense of dignity was one of the finest 
traits in Kiderlen's nature. The former presi- 
dent of the Roumanian Council, Monsieur 
Maioresco, knows something about it, for during 
the summer of 1912 he thought he understood 
that Kiderlen had expressed a wish to be asked 
to stay with the King at Sinaia, and he made the 
mistake of asking the German Minister whether 
Kiderlen's position with the Emperor was suffi- 
ciently good to warrant such an invitation. 

Kiderlen heard about it, was furiously angry, 
and wrote a crushing letter saying he should 
like it known that he never had asked and never 
would ask for an invitation from anyone, no 
matter whom. 

And yet he had a great admiration for King 
Charles, and kept him informed of everything 



KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 61 

from Berlin. In the Spring of 1912, he told 
him for his private information only the great 
news of the Balkan alliance. He added that he 
had learned it from a most exceptional source, 
which would dry up for ever if the King was in 
the least indiscreet with the news. I was never 
able to discover who this mysterious informant 
was. 

Another of Kiderlen's characteristics was his 
wit. For example, one day the Roumanian 
Minister for Foreign Affairs, General Lahovary, 
said to him at a diplomatic reception, " I do not 
understand what you are after in Morocco. 
France alone has rights in Morocco." Kiderlen 
replied, " I don't know either. You see my 
Government only keeps me informed of questions 
that are supposed to affect Roumania. They did 
not look upon Morocco in this light ; but since 
you have pointed out to me that they are wrong, 
I will ask Berlin for a special explanation for 
your Excellency." 

I don't pretend here to draw Kiderlen's por- 
trait. I shall try to do so one day. These few 
words of introduction are, however, indispen- 
sable to the story which follows of the statements 
made to me by Kiderlen at the time of the 
Morocco crisis. 

II 

When Kiderlen was made Minister of Foreign 
Affairs he had to leave Roumania. A few days 
before his departure we were out walking, as 
was our habit, and he began to sketch out his 



62 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

programme in so far as it concerned German 
relations with France. 

" I have told them," he said, " that every 
effort at an alliance with France is doomed to 
failure. It is simply impossible for us to win 
her friendship. I know better than anyone that 
France wants peace and that she will never 
attack us. I am perfectly sure about this, but 
I also know that if we were attacked by any 
other'' Power no Government would be strong 
enough to prevent France attacking us at the 
same time. Therefore all we can do is to main- 
tain good peaceable relations with France and 
not try for anything more ambitious. For this 
reason I advised them " (and by them he meant 
the Kaiser) " to give up all designs on Morocco, 
and I explained to them that so long as the 
Morocco question was open England would side 
with France all over the world and on all questions 
at issue between us. Now that would not suit 
us one little bit. England, of course, cannot 
abandon France on the Morocco question. She 
knows well enough that in exchange for some- 
thing she did not possess in Morocco she received 
from the French their positive rights in Egypt. 
England owes a debt of honour to France. If 
we want to get rid of all the disadvantages which 
Anglo-French diplomatic co-operation connotes 
for us we must give the French a free hand in 
Morocco and so help England to pay her debt to 
France. And we shall be sacrificing nothing, for 
we cannot set ourselves down in Morocco in face 
of English opposition. Then why maintain this 



KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 63 

useless tension ? If we can get something for 
ourselves on this occasion so much the better, 
but we must not make that a condition of the 
settlement." 

" And do you believe that this policy will be 
adopted ? " I asked. 

" Of course, as they have appointed me to the 
Foreign Office, for you know perfectly well that 
I am not the kind of man who carries out any 
policy but my own." 

" Then," I said, " we need not worry ourselves 
over the Morocco question. Peace will not be 
threatened in that quarter." 

" Certainly not, and besides you know how 
truly I long for peace. We have nothing to 
gain from victory, and in the case of defeat we 
have only too much to lose. Time is in our 
favour. Every decade we become stronger than 
our enemies. You have no conception of the 
prodigious strides made in our national economy. 
And what good would a war be ? Admitting 
that we are victorious ; if we take new territory 
we only increase our difficulties. Then there is 
another thing you may not have considered. 
Every big victory is the work of the people, and 
the people have to be paid for it. We had to 
pay for the victory of 1870 with that pestilential 
thing, universal suffrage. After another victory 
we should have the parliamentary system — and 
you know what I think about that for uf Germans. 
It would be an irreparable evil. No German 
would ever submit to party discipline. Every 
German, every German deputy wants to form 



64 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

his own party, or at least his own group. We 
have no need of war. If we don't bring it on, 
nobody will. The Republican regime in France 
is essentially pacific. The English don't want 
war, and will never provoke it in spite of what 
the newspapers say. As for Russia, she knows 
that she cannot make war on us with any chance 
of success. Of course there will always be 
delicate questions, and of course there will be 
anxious moments, but war will not come. You 
may make your mind easy about Morocco." 

Kiderlen went on in this strain. He explained 
his whole policy to me, and I believed his declar- 
ations to be sincere, for he had never given me 
any reason to doubt him; but after this talk 
I was naturally astonished when the Agadir 
incident occurred. 

At the time of the incident I was in London, 
and on the evening Lloyd George made his 
famous speech at the Mansion House I had some 
people dining with me at the Carlton. After 
dinner a friend who had heard the speech came 
in and repeated the gist of it, and when he told 
me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who 
was well known to be most peacefully inclined, 
had read the passage relating to Foreign Affairs 
from a slip of paper, I realised how grave the 
situation was, and shivered at the idea of Euro- 
pean war. 

Calm soon reigned again, for Germany wisely 
withdrew. I breathed freely, but from that 
moment German policy became for me an 
enigma. 



KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 65 

III 

In the Autumn of 1911 I went to Brussels 
for a family gathering. On my way home I 
stopped at Berlin to pay my friend Kiderlen a 
long promised visit. I stayed three days and 
met him continually, but the conversation on 
the first day was the most interesting. Kiderlen 
had invited me to lunch with him alone. He was 
late in arriving, because he had been detained at 
the Reichstag, where he had been heckled over 
what was called his Moroccan defeat. There was 
one man in particular, the socialist deputy Lede- 
bour, who was a perfect nightmare to Kiderlen. 

Before he arrived I looked round his study, 
which was littered with papers and maps. There 
were a few photographs, of course — mostly of 
kings. As for photographs of ordinary human 
beings I only saw three, that of an Austrian 
whose name I forget, that of Monsieur Cambon, 
with an autograph and dedication, and my own. 
Cambon and I were often said by Kiderlen to 
be alike, and he used to say that we were the 
only foreigners he talked frankly to, because 
we had never told him anything but the truth. 

Kiderlen was very tired, and we sat down to 
luncheon at once. The wonderful Sevres given 
him by the President of the French Republic, 
in memory of the agreement of 1909, was on 
the table. " That is the price of treason," he 
said jokingly. 

During luncheon and afterwards until four 
o'clock we had leisure to discuss every question 

J.I. E 



66 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

that interested us. Of course I did not conceal 
my astonishment over his Moroccan policy, which 
had nearly brought on a war with England, a 
war which he had always characterised as absurd. 
He explained that he never meant actually to 
go to war, but that his only object was that of 
settling the Morocco question once and for all. 

He alleged that France was not carrying out 
the agreement reached in 1909, and that he had 
to deal her a blow to make her see that things 
were serious. He maintained that the blow had 
done its work, because they had subsequently 
arrived at an understanding, and that in future 
relations with France would be normal and 
relations with England might become friendly. 
He did not admit to me what I well knew to be 
his real object— namely, to test the solidity of 
the Anglo-French understanding and if possible 
to smash it. He complained that he was grow- 
ing more and more unpopular owing to his wish 
to avoid war, and he assured me in the most 
categorical manner that the Emperor was at 
one with him in keeping the peace, and this m 
spite of the frankly bellicose attitude of the 
whole Imperial Family, including those who had 
never before mixed themselves up in politics. He 
told me at some length of a conversation he had 
had with the Crown Prince in that same room 
in the chair I was then occupying, a conversation 
which was entirely to Kiderlen's credit. He 
told me that the Crown Prince was worse than a 
ninny, and that he had said to him that it was 
not in the society of little officer boys that 



KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 67 

politics could be learnt, and that he ought not 
to meddle with matters which he did not under- 
stand. 

Referring once more to Anglo-German relations, 
he again told me of his wish to reach an under- 
standing with England. He did not conceal 
from me what I already knew so well that, like 
Bismarck, he detested England principally on 
account of her parliamentary institutions, but 
he told me that he believed what Bismarck had 
once written to Holstein was true, that England 
was one of the great conservative factors of the 
world, and it was not in anyone's interest to 
destroy it. In this letter Bismarck added that 
the day England became revolutionary the whole 
world would become revolutionary too. 

'But if you are so anxious to come to an 
understanding with England," I said, "why 
don't you do the one thing to ensure it ? Why 
do you refuse to compromise on the question of 
naval armament ? What is your object in push- 
ing to its limit the competitive policy? I 
understood your attitude when it was still a 
question of your becoming the second great sea- 
power of the world. That you already are, and 
what more do you want? Do you aspire 
to be not only the greatest military power in 
the world, but also the greatest naval power ? 
That would mean universal domination, and it 
is not realisable. Others have tried it, Spain 
and France, for example, but they went under. 
You are too intelligent not to understand that 
until she has been utterly crushed it is impossible 



68 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

for England to let herself be outbuilt on the sea. 
You may build five Dreadnoughts, she will build 
thirteen. Where are you going to stop ? You 
are heading straight for a war with England, 
and that, you know, will be no joke. Admitting 
for a moment that you gain the victory. How 
long will that last ? You would raise against 
yourself a world coalition. So hated would 
you be that the very rabbits would enrol them- 
selves against you. Don't follow dreams — and 
what you are after now is a dream." 

Kiderlen replied rather bitterly, " I wanted 
to have an understanding over the limitation 
of armaments, but I couldn't manage it. I 
have said everything you have said to me, though 
perhaps I have not put it so well. I have said 
it to Tirpitz, who was sitting in this armchair of 
mine. I was sitting in yours." 
" And ? " 

" I did not succeed in convincing him," he 
answered. 

" But the Emperor ? " I asked. 
" He sided with Tirpitz." 

And then he went on to asseverate that in 
spite of this he would do all he possibly could 
to come to an agreement with England. He 
suggested even that I should tell my friends in 
London to send him as Ambassador someone 
who had a great position in England, so that 
the work would not have to be done twice over, 
in London and Berlin. We then went on to 
talk about the agreement he had just concluded 
with France. He assured me that if by accident 



KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 69 

the French Parliament rejected the agreement 
it would mean war. The agreement represented 
the maximum concession that the people of 
Germany would stand. 

That very day I took pains to write my im- 
pressions to a friend in Paris. My friend showed 
my letter to M. Caillaux, then Prime Minister, 
who read it to the Foreign Affairs Committee 
of the Senate. 

This was the last occasion on which I had any 
prolonged talk with Kiderlen. From this time 
on we simply wrote to each other. 

On the evening of the 30th of December, 1912, 
I was due to meet him at Stuttgart, where he 
had been spending the Christmas holidays, and 
where he remained. At the railway station at 
Salzburg I heard of his most unexpected death, 
and the next day at Stuttgart they told me that 
my name was one of the last words he had spoken. 

Perhaps it was only an illusion of friendship, 
but I cannot help believing that in Kiderlen we 
lost one of the mainstays of peace. Not that 
my friend was a sentimentalist, far from it ; but he 
was a man of genuinely well-set mind, and his real 
intellect kept him to the last of the opinion 
that a war of Germany against the world was 
altogether a bad business. 



Count Aehrenthal 



VIII 
COUNT AEHRENTHAL 

I 

COUNT AEHRENTHAL was the most 
brilliant Austrian Foreign Minister since 
the days of Beust. His capacity is the 
measure of his blunders. Without exaggerating, 
one may say that he was to a great extent the 
author of the war. As a matter of fact, from 1866 
down to this day the Hapsburgs have maintained 
a prudent political reserve, and though Count 
Andrassy gave himself airs at the time of the 
Berlin Congress everyone knew that it was nothing 
but showing off. Aehrenthal alone took the idea 
seriously that Austria-Hungary was still a great 
power and destined to act an important part in 
the world's affairs. On several occasions he tried 
to play first fiddle in the European orchestra, to 
the great disgust of Berlin, which could not bear 
that Austria should even pretend to emancipate 
herself from its yoke. 

The key to Count AehrenthaPs active and 
dangerous policy must be sought in a personal 
matter. He was extraordinarily intelligent for 
an Austrian, and his quickness of understanding, 

73 



74 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

his faculty for adaptation, his charming vivacity 
can only be explained by the drop of Jewish 
blood that ran in his veins. 

Count Aehrenthal knew his own value, especi- 
ally when he compared himself with other 
Austrian diplomats. He was very ambitious 
and believed he was destined for great things, 
and he intended to use the power of the monarchy 
for his own aggrandisement and personal fame. 

He was a Bohemian and detested Slavs. I 
remember a day when he received news of anti- 
German excesses in Prague. " Czechs," he said, 
*' have such hard heads that they have to be 
broken in order to make them understand any- 
thing." 

He had been in Russia for a long time, and 
knew all the weaknesses of that colossus. In 
his thirst for success he exaggerated them and 
under-estimated the infinite resources of her 
clumsy organism. 

I saw a great deal of Count Aehrenthal during 
his long stay in Roumania, and have many 
letters from him. One day he tried to do me an 
irreparable injury in making use of some infor- 
mation he had dragged out of me at my own 
luncheon table. I naturally resented this very 
much, and though, luckily for me, I was able to 
counter his manoeuvre in time, our relations 
after this became purely official. 

On the eve of his final departure from 
Roumania, he let me know that he wished to do 
more than leave a p.p.c. card on me, and that 
he would like to see me. In this last interview 



COUNT AEHRENTHAL 75 

he told me that we should probably both serve 
our countries for some time to come, that we 
should therefore have to meet each other, and 
that it would be better to forget the past. I 
told him that as he had not succeeded in injuring 
me and as he believed he was serving his country 
in trying to do so, I was quite willing to resume 
our old footing. 

Later on when he was transferred from the 
Embassy at Petrograd to the Foreign Office I 
used to go and see him. I am now going to tell 
of two of those interviews. 

The first took place on a September day in 
1909 or 1910. I don't know which, I only know 
that it was after Tangier and before Agadir. 

He asked me what impressions I brought 
back from my three months' tour in France and 
England. 

" I brought back two impressions," I said. 
" The first is that the alliance between England 
and France cannot be broken — at any rate in 
this generation. It is firmer even than your 
alliance with Germany." 

" But," he objected, " there is no treaty of 
alliance." 

" Of course there is no treaty, but there is 
something better. Don't forget that those two 
nations are free nations governing themselves. 
Well, they are firmly convinced that their inte- 
rests are the same, and they have decided to act 
together. No Government could break such an 
agreement which springs from the mind of the 
two peoples." 



76 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

" But such an alliance is ridiculous ! " he 
exclaimed. " France stands to gain nothing from 
England, whereas from Germany she could have 
anything she wanted." 

" France realises," I answered, " that in ally- 
ing herself with Germany she would be allying 
herself against England. If England were over- 
come France would be nothing but the vassal 
of Germany. That is a position you have 
accepted for yourselves. France has too glorious 
a history behind her to accept a similar position 
without being crushed first." 

" What ! " said he briskly. " Austria is Ger- 
many's vassal ? " 

" Yes, just as Roumania is the vassal of 
Austria." I said this to coat the bitter pill. 

" And what was your second impression ? " 

" I will tell you in a few words. France is no 
longer afraid. She desires peace passionately ; 
she will never provoke war, but she is no longer 
afraid. Henceforth if you bully her realise that 
it means war. The time for bluffing is gone by. 
If you want war that is another thing, but 
intimidation and bluff will no longer work." 

"But it is mad," he said. "The French 
army, far from being stronger than it was a few 
years ago, is much weaker." 

" Fear," I said, " is a physical question. 
One may be weak and yet not be afraid. For 
one reason and another, because perhaps she has 
been too much bullied in the past, France, who 
was afraid at the Tangier crisis, is now no longer 
afraid ; of that I am profoundly convinced." 



COUNT AERHENTHAL 77 

"It is very odd," said Aehrenthal in ending 
the conversation ; " our ambassadors have not 
formed the same conclusions as you have." 

" I can only give you my own," I replied, and 
we passed on to talk of other things. 



II 

The last time I saw Count Aehrenthal was during 
the Autumn of 1911, a few months before his 
death. 

His illness had marked him heavily. He had 
been spending a few weeks in the beautiful 
surroundings of Mendel — henceforward, I hope, to 
be Mendola — but he was not much better for it. 
There was something very peculiar about his 
condition, something I had never seen before. 
He had kept his clearness of mind intact, but 
he found great difficulty in expressing himself 
— he stammered. He only did this for the 
first few words of a sentence. Once he had got 
a phrase out the rest went easily. And this 
took place each time that he began to speak. 
I must leave the explanation of this symptom 
to the doctors. 

Count Aehrenthal was embittered, very much 
embittered, by his struggles with the Archduke 
Francis Ferdinand and his protege, Conrad von 
Hoetzendorf, whom he had just triumphed over. 
He did not explain things straight out to me, but 
he let me understand. 

" There are people who think I was wrong in 
preventing war with Italy," he said. " They 



78 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

say that Italy would never in any case fight on 
our side and that it would have been better to 
square accounts now. But I think I was right. 
Even if Italy never fights on our side we should 
be quite wrong to attack an ally when she was 
engaged elsewhere." 

Naturally I agreed with him. 
And then forthwith we returned to the subject 
that we had so often discussed at Bucharest. 

I had always maintained that monarchies 
were doomed and that only those monarchies 
which were literally and really constitutional 
had any chance of surviving ; the rest seemed to 
me to be nearer their end than anyone believed. 
Aehrenthal, absolutist and reactionary as he 
always was, fought this opinion of mine bitterly. 
Imagine my surprise at finding Count Aehrenthal 
almost converted to Republicanism. 

He told me that on reflection he had changed 
his mind, and was no longer prejudiced against 
the Republican system. He also explained that 
it was chiefly on account of foreign policy that 
he had once believed so firmly in the monarchical 
system. 

" But now, " he said, " France gives the lie to 
all my theories. The foreign policy of the French 
Republic is skilfully conducted and undoubtedly 
successful. Although France, thanks to her 
political institutions, uses up more men than 
any other country, she has a constant supply of 
first-rate men at her helm. Look at her diplo- 
macy. The whole German and Austrian 
Diplomatic Corps together are not worth the 



COUNT AEHRENTHAL 79 

brothers Cambon and Barrere, only to mention 
these three." 

" What," I said laughingly, " and it is you, 
Count Aehrenthal — here in the Ballplatz, facing 
the portraits of Metternich and Kaunitz — who 
tell me that ! " 

" Yes, I do. Life teaches us many things," 
he replied. 

I understood more clearly than ever how 
greatly Aehrenthal must have suffered recently 
from the interference of Francis Ferdinand in 
his policy. He who had been so sure of his 
mastery over the world of archdukes had himself 
experienced the bitterness, the indignity of 
despotic government. And before his death he 
had a revulsion of feeling that gave him a vision 
of certain truths, a vision that men who pass 
their lives as slaves never attain to. Once 
again I recognised the signs of Jewish blood ; 
without it no Austrian Count and Foreign Minister 
of his Apostolic Majesty could have spoken in 
such a fashion. 

None the less, Aehrenthal bears his share of 
the responsibility for the war. He wished to 
live in history, he seriously wished to expand 
Austria-Hungary. But all the same in pressing 
this policy he had his tongue in his cheek. The 
Magyar party adopted his policy as its own, and 
the result is that Austria-Hungary has perished. 

It is the strongest men who are liable to commit 
the worst mistakes. 



Count Czernin 



IX 
COUNT CZERNIN 

THE last time I talked politics with Count 
Czernin, a conversation to which I shall 
have occasion to refer again, the Austrian 
minister began by saying that he had a great 
favour to ask me. 

It was a few days after the fall of Lemberg 
in 1914. ' We shall soon be at war with each 
other," he said, "but after the war we shall 
have peace. Promise me that, when once the 
war is over and I have the pleasure of meeting 
you again, we shall be the same friends as ever." 
He punctuated his request with compliments 
which it is not for me to repeat. 

As he was in my house I had to make a civil 
answer. I hunted about for something to say, 
and then with a certain measure of embarrass- 
ment I said something of this kind : " I don't 
know whether we are going to be at war or not. 
But if we were it would only be because our 
respective nations believed that it was their 
interest or their duty to fight one another. 
We are both of us civilised men. There is no 
earthly reason why after the war we should not 
in our individual capacity be friends again." 

83 



84 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

At that time I did not believe Count Czernin 
was capable of doing what he did later on, 
when he cancelled my Austrian decoration 
and, denying his own words, deliberately lied 
to me. 

If I had known him better my answer would 
have been quite different, but Count Czernin is 
really a most accomplished type of Austrian. 

We all know, and we all say, that there is no 
such thing as an Austrian nation. It is true in 
the real sense of the word. An Austrian people 
in the sense of a collection of men having a 
collective conscience does not exist and could 
not exist. But Austrians do exist. They are 
members of a clique recruited from among the 
nations of the earth, serving the Hapsburgs from 
father to son, living on the Imperial favour and 
forming a sort of civilian general staff to that 
family — which is the only link existing amongst 
the nations composing the Empire. 1 Amongst 
themselves these people talk German, but intel- 
lectually they are not Germans. Though by 
origin they may be Czech, Polish, Italian, Croatian, 
German, yet they are not Czechs or Poles or 
Italians or Croats or Germans. Until quite 
recently they could even be of Magyar origin 
without, however, being really Magyars. All these 
people, all the members of this little clique, are 
Austrians. They are, in fact, the only Austrians 
in the world. Their essential characteristic is 
the absence of real intelligence, yet they are not 
quite as innocent as they look, for they have 

1 This was written before the flight of the Austrian Emperor. 



COUNT CZERNIN 85 

bureaucratic traditions and a guile that stands 
them in lieu of intelligence. 

When one first sees them one is charmed by 
their beautiful manners and what I can only 
describe as their encyclopaedic polish. This pre- 
vents one realising their hopeless nonentity. 
Then one is liable to err in the other direction. 
From astonishment at their ignorance and want 
of brain one comes to believe them to be harm- 
less. It is only after a time that one learns the 
real truth. Then one perceives that at bottom 
these people are rogues, and that one should 
not reckon too much on their intellectual 
nonentity. 

Count Czernin is a most typical Austrian, and 
intercourse with him is most agreeable, as his 
manners, at any rate in appearance, are perfectly 
charming. He has a rudimentary intelligence, 
but it is amply supplemented by guile. He has, 
too, a fund of humour which sometimes might 
almost be regarded as wit. Thus one day he 
said to Radeff, a former Bulgarian comitadji, 
" Neither you nor I will ever make good diplo- 
mats, because I never lie and you never speak 
the truth." And again, to his colleague Busche, 
who was always boasting about the superiority 
of Germany to poor Austria, he said, "But at 
least there is one point on which you will have to 
admit that Austria is superior to Germany." 
And when Busche, who was intelligent but 
rather uncouth, persisted that this was impossible, 
Czernin said slily, " We have a better ally than 
Germany has ! " 



86 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Count Czernin was in retirement in 1913 when 
Vienna thought fit to replace Count Fiirstenberg, 
the then minister to Roumania, because he had 
failed to prevent Roumania making war on 
Bulgaria, with the Peace of Bucharest as the 
consequence. 

The Archduke Francis Ferdinand picked out 
Czernin for the post. He had always intended 
one day to make him Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
In the meantime he sent him to Bucharest with 
the definite mission of patching up Austro- 
Roumanian relations at the price of serious 
concessions in Transylvania which he meant the 
Magyars to make to the Roumanians. I met 
Count Czernin for the first time immediately 
after his arrival at the opening of an industrial 
museum. 

In spite of the crowd all round us Count 
Czernin took me into a corner and explained 
that he had only come to Bucharest with a 
view to consolidating our relations by con- 
cessions which the Magyars were to make to 
us. He assured me that these concessions would 
be made whether Budapest liked it or not. In 
the long run it was certain that Budapest would 
see reason, because not only was it a matter of 
justice, but it was absolutely necessary. And 
in conclusion he said, " Unless the Magyars make 
large concessions the Austro-Roumanian alliance 
cannot go on." 

In speaking like this he showed true courage, 
and I have no doubt that he was himself deluded 
as to the possibility of serious concessions. It 



COUNT CZERNIN 87 

was distinctly honourable on the part of an 
Austro-Hungarian Minister to admit that he 
regarded them as absolutely necessary. At the 
same time for him to tell me so bluntly in 
the middle of a crowd at our first meeting 
seemed to me a very singular proceeding, but 
it only strengthened my opinion of Austrian 
diplomats. 

Later on it became evident even to Count 
Czernin that the tale of Magyar concessions to 
Roumania was nothing but an Arabian Nights' 
romance, and each time I saw him he referred to 
it less explicitly. It was easy to see that he felt 
awkward and knew that he had gone too far, and 
that he was looking out for an honourable way of 
retreat. 

At the beginning of the world war our relations 
were most correct, but our political conversations 
were confined to the ordinary gossip of society. 
When I returned from England in the early 
days of the war on the eve of the Privy Council 
of August the 3rd at Sinaia I often met Count 
Czernin, who like me had his headquarters at 
Sinaia. He was trying like so many others to 
defend Austria against the accusation of having 
unchained the war. I protested vigorously, and 
he thereupon asked me to explain to him un- 
reservedly what made me affirm the contrary. 
At that time Waldhausen, the German Minister, 
Czernin and I had a talk at the Palace Hotel at 
Sinaia which lasted nearly three hours. Having 
obtained permission to speak freely, and taking 
no notice of their nationality, I made out a regular 



88 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

indictment of Germany and of Austria in par- 
ticular. I produced so many proofs, quoted so 
many facts of which the public was still ignorant, 
and used such crude language that of necessity 
my relations with Count Czernin were affected. 
He naturally pretended that I was mistaken, but 
congratulated me on my frankness and courage, 
at the same time stating that he should look upon 
me as one of the most implacable enemies of his 
country. 

If I repeated this conversation it would consist 
chiefly in a monologue, and it would only mean 
reiterating all I have said and written on the 
origin of the war, and just a few other things 
that I have not yet made public. It would have 
little or nothing to do with Count Czernin. 

From that day we ceased to call on each other, 
but this did not prevent our talking if we happened 
to meet. It was not till some weeks later, when 
I had proof of his having taken part in the 
hateful work of political corruption, that we 
ceased to bow to each other. 

One day on the boulevard at Sinaia he stopped 
and asked me if it were true that Talaat and 
Zaimis were coming to Roumania in order to 
try and come to an arrangement over the Turco- 
Greek difficulty about the Islands. 

When I answered that it was true, he asked 
me with a malicious smile if I believed Talaat 
was really coming for that purpose. 

I straightway said " No," and added that 
Talaat had stayed at Sofia on his way and that 
it was obvious that he was coming to Roumania 



COUNT CZERNIN 89 

to try and arrange a Turco-Bulgar-Roumanian 
alliance against Russia. 

" Well," said Czernin, " and if they make a 
proposition of the kind what are you going to 

say ? " 

" I am not the Government," I said, " but if 
I were and a proposition of this kind were put 
forward, I should tell them quite straight out 
that if I wanted to go hand in hand with Austria 
I should discuss the matter with her and not 
with her household servants." 

Czernin thought my language rather pictur- 
esque and dropped the subject. 

A few days after Lemberg had fallen Count 
Czernin telephoned to know whether I could see 
him. He said he wanted to bring me back some 
books I had lent him. I naturally said " Yes," 
all the more willingly as it was several weeks since 
he had been to see me. I was curious to know 
why he was coming; the books were too trans- 
parent an excuse. I received him in my study ; 
it was our last conversation, and it is so strange 
as to be worth recording. 

Count Czernin began by referring to a matter 
I have already mentioned, the question of our 
private friendship after the war. Just as I was 
saying that neither war nor peace depended on 
me, he said, " You are going to make war on us. 
That is self-evident. It is your interest and 
your duty to do so. If I were a Roumanian I 
would attack Austria, and I cannot see why you 
should not do what I should do in your place. 
Of course it is not very pretty to go for an ally, 



90 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

but history is made up of such rascalities, Austrian 
history as much as that of any other state, and 
I don't see why Roumania should be the only 
exception " ; and then, as I told him he was 
making me feel perfectly at home, he went on, 
" all the same I must ask one thing of you. 
Just wait for a fortnight. In a fortnight the 
whole military situation will have changed in 
our favour, and whatever your present interest 
may be in making war on us you will then see 
that it would be a mistake." I smiled, and 
Czernin went on, " No, not a fortnight, let us 
say three weeks ; that is all I ask of you. If 
the situation has not changed in three weeks, 
attack us. I should do so in your place. I 
insist, however, on the three weeks, for mark you, 
this will be a war of extermination. If we are 
victorious we shall suppress Roumania. If we 
are beaten Austria-Hungary will cease to exist." 
I again said that the war did not depend on me, 
and that judging from what I saw he might count, 
not on three weeks, but a far longer time, even 
if war were eventually to break out between us. 
I added that it seemed an exaggeration to talk 
of extermination, and went on to say, " Our 
circumstances are in no way parallel. For 
example, if Roumania were suppressed I should 
lose everything, and should be but a pariah 
wandering through the world, while you, who 
are by way of being a good German, stand 
to lose nothing when Austria disappears. You 
may even be a gainer by it, as Germany can 
never be suppressed." 



COUNT CZERNIN 91 

On this we parted. It was in the afternoon, 
and in the evening I heard from Filipesco that 
Czernin had that very day said precisely the 
same things to him. 

This last talk with Count Czernin is perhaps the 
strangest r ever had with any diplomat. For 
the representative of Austria-Hungary to say 
that if he were a Roumanian he would make war 
on Austria because it was the interest and duty 
of Roumania so to do would have been extra- 
ordinary and utterly incredible if I had not my- 
self heard it. 

It seems to me that after this talk it was not 
becoming in Count Czernin to bring himself to 
treat the King of Roumania and our statesmen 
in the way he did. He had no right to ask us to 
be blinder than he was himself to the interest 
and duty of Roumania. 



Count Mensdorff 



X 

COUNT MENSDORFF 

I ARRIVED in London on the 12th of July, 
1914, in the evening. I was much worried, 
although on the 9th of July, only three days 
earlier, King Charles had positively assured me that 
peace would be preserved for at least three years 
longer. It was quite impossible for me to forget 
the horrible way in which the Marquis Pallavicini 
had spoken to me in the Spring of 1914, and 
from my own observation during the whole of 
the Balkan crisis I knew that Austria really 
wanted war. 

So when the Serajevo outrage occurred it was 
easy for me to appraise the full gravity of the 
situation. And when I saw Austria — in other 
words, Count Tisza, who since the death of Francis 
Ferdinand was virtually dictator of the Empire 
— preserve an inscrutable attitude while pre- 
paring a so-called case but giving no indication 
of her intentions, my anxiety deepened still 
further. 

It was in this state of mind that I arrived in 
London. 

There I found a very strange situation. A 
large section of the Press was in all good faith 

95 



96 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

friendly to Austria. In England the old notion 
of a pacific Austria necessary to the balance of 
power in Europe still obtained. I must admit 
that the Austrian Ambassador, Count Mensdorff, 
and his friends had done their work well. It is 
well known that the English Press is immune 
against any form of corruption, but on the other 
hand personal relations and friendships play a 
great part in this journalistic world, where people 
are inclined to be over-confiding because they 
are fundamentally honest. The soil, too, was 
favourable. England had not yet forgotten the 
horror felt over the assassination of King Alex- 
ander and Queen Draga. 

Count Mensdorff was the embodiment of the 
best type of Austrian diplomat. He was a 
true aristocrat and a fine-looking man, but he 
was not well educated and not at all intelligent, 
though perhaps on this account all the more 
plausible and untrustworthy. 

During the preceding weeks he had been 
assiduously making up to journalists. As Prince 
Lichnowsky said to me at the time, " He is concoct- 
ing something or other." This " something " obvi- 
ously was to launch English public opinion on the 
wrong scent — in other words, to spread the sus- 
picion that Serbia was particularly responsible 
for the assassination of the Archduke, Mnce she 
had been over-tolerant of revolutionary move- 
ments. Count Mensdorff 's agents had had re- 
course to an old device of Austrian diplomacy, 
a forgery. Some rascal had given John Bull 
a document purporting to have emanated from 



COUNT MENSDORFF 97 

the Serbian Legation in London which proved 
that the assassination of the Archduke was the 
work of the Government of Belgrade. When 
I met the Serbian Minister, M. Boscovitch, at 
St. Ann's Hill, the house of my friend Sir Albert 
Rollit, he asked me as to the propriety of bring- 
ing a libel action against John Bull. The 
document seemed to me such an obvious fabrica- 
tion that I said it was unnecessary. War settled 
the question of this new Austrian forgery. 

The English Press was on the wrong tack. 
It honestly believed that Austria was out for 
the punishment of the assassins, and never for a 
moment suspected the criminal designs of the 
Hapsburgs. 

I realised at once that this attitude of the 
English Press might well constitute a real danger 
to the peace of Europe. I was positive that the 
Government of Vienna, which was totally incap- 
able of believing in disinterested motives or in 
frank dealing, would read heaven knows what 
ultra - pacific tendencies into the English 
papers and that it would encourage them to make 
most unreasonable demands on Serbia. And I 
feared this all the more as I found out that Sir 
Edward Grey had completely failed in obtaining 
any light as to the intended demands of Austria. 

I made up my mind to do the best I could 
in my own modest capacity, and in the afternoon 
in my own room at the Ritz I saw Mr. Steed, 
then foreign editor of the Times, and author of 
the well-known book on the Hapsburg Monarchy ; 
Mr. Gwynne, editor of the Morning Post, a friend 



98 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

of twenty-five years' standing ; and Professor 
Gerothwohl, who wrote for the Standard. 

My friends knew Vienna too well to be taken 
in, but all round them were the many victims of 
Count Mensdorff's honeyed tongue. 

I explained to them that, knowing as I did the 
bellicose disposition of Austria, they were endan- 
gering the peace of Europe in encouraging her. 
I begged them in the interests of peace to warn 
Austria, and to do it in a pretty stiff tone, the only 
tone understood in Vienna and Budapesth. I 
added that I took upon myself full responsibility 
for this Press campaign, which I believed to be 
useful not only in the interests of peace but of 
the wretched Hapsburg Monarchy itself. 

On the following morning, both the Times 
and the Morning Post published vehement leaders 
denouncing the Austrian plot and giving the 
Hapsburgs a warning which should have prevented 
them taking the plunge if the Tisza-Forgasch- 
Berchtold trio had not been completely demented. 
At any rate English public opinion was awakened. 
Most of the Press followed the example given by 
the Times and Morning Post. The alarm signal 
had been given. 

When, a few days later, on the morning of 
the 24th, Austria's monstrous ultimatum ap- 
peared, everything was made clear even to the 
most unbelieving. At any rate in England pre- 
judice in favour of Austria was dead for ever. 

We who had given the alarm signal were right. 
How happy we should have been to have been 
wrong ! 



England** Antipathy to TJ^ar 



XI 
ENGLAND'S ANTIPATHY TO WAR 

DURING my long official life I have made and 
received too many confidences not to know 
the obligations attaching to my position. 
It is only the insistence with which Germany dis- 
seminates the false legend that the war is the work 
of the British Empire that forces me to depart 
from my usual discretion, which I believe up till 
now has been unchallenged. 

I am going to tell of two personal matters, 
the first of which dates from January, 1913. 

I was then in London, and through conversation 
with the British Foreign Minister and other 
authoritative representatives of English thought 
I had acquired a deep conviction that England 
passionately longed for peace. For this reason 
I believed her relations with Germany — who at 
the moment was usefully employed in muzzling the 
warlike proclivities of her ally Austria-Hungary 
— were becoming closer and more cordial. Thus 
on the 7th of January, 1913, I allowed myself to 
write to the late King Charles telling him that, 
given the unshakable determination of England 
and Germany to prevent European war, I was 

101 



102 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

certain it would never break out. But that, 
as people will say, is ancient history. 

Well, on Tuesday, the 21st of July, 1914, two 
days before the Austrian ultimatum was pre- 
sented to Serbia, I had the honour of being 
received in a long audience by Sir Edward Grey, 1 
Minister of Foreign Affairs to the British Empire. 

I wanted to get him to assist the State of 
Albania to get out of the impasse it was in. 
And I tried to convince him of the necessity of 
sending an international contingent to Albania 
and of putting a little more money at the disposal 
of the Prince of Wied. 

After explaining to him the European aspect 
of Albanian difficulties, I pointed out that Albania 
was liable to reduce Austria to the state of 
nerves she had been in during the Balkan war. 
This is literally what I said : "I know that there 
are people who imagine that a war between 
Austria and Italy may be the result of tolerating 
the present mix-up in Albania and that it is a 
way of detaching Italy from the Triple Alliance, 
but this would be a short-sighted dangerous 
policy." 

Sir Edward Grey, in a tone of real sincerity 
— that particular sincerity of English statesmen 
which imposes respect and confidence on the 
world — interrupted me with a display of emotion 
rare in such a collected person, saying, " But I 
do not want to detach Italy from the Triple 
Alliance and I have never tried to do so. I have 
always realised that if Italy left the Triple 

1 Now Viscount Grey. 



ENGLAND'S ANTIPATHY TO WAR 103 

Alliance and joined France and Russia the 
combination against Germany and Austria would 
become so powerful that the peace of Europe, 
which rests on the balance of power, would be 
endangered. I want nothing but peace, I work 
for nothing but peace." And in order that we may 
fully realise the importance of this communication, 
I must add that a few minutes later Sir Edward 
Grey spoke to me of the extreme gravity of the 
political situation owing to the Austro-Serbian 
quarrel. He was fully aware of the possibilities 
inherent in the situation, and was all the more 
acutely anxious as it had been impossible for 
him to discover what Austria's terms to Serbia 
were. 

This happened forty-eight hours before the 
fatal ultimatum which was, and will remain, one 
of the most tragic blots on the escutcheon of 
European history. The ultimatum will also be 
remembered as the most formidable blow ever 
delivered at small nations whose existence, com- 
pared with that of the large nations, is so difficult, 
so anxious, and so painful. 



"The Responsibility for the TVar 



XII 

THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 

THE true history of the responsibility for the 
war may be summed up as follows : — 
Austria, who had never given up the 
idea of obtaining compensation in the Balkan 
Peninsula for her losses in Italy, allowed the Turco- 
Balkan war of 1912 to take place, because she, like 
Germany, was convinced that the Turks would 
win. Was there not in Turkey a Military Mission, 
and was it possible to think that the pupils of 
the Germans could be beaten ? Was it thinkable 
that wretched serfs could be of serious military 
value ? 

The defeat of the Turks falsified all the calcu- 
lations of Austria, and from that moment she 
lost her head and conceived the project of plung- 
ing Europe into blood and fire in order to regain 
for herself the prestige which she thought had 
passed away from her. 

I repeat the charge that during the whole 
period between the battle of Lule-Burgas until 
the Peace of London, Austria wished to provoke 
a European war. 

The Anglo-German entente for preserving the 
benefits of peace for Europe, an entente that at 

107 



108 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

the time was genuine, proved an insuperable 
barrier to the prospects of Austria. Nevertheless 
she did not give up her intentions. With re- 
markable intuition as to human weakness she 
scented the possibility of war amongst the 
victors, and she encouraged Bulgaria to commit 
the fatal act which brought it about. 

When she found herself once more mistaken 
in her calculations and Bulgaria beaten by 
the hated Serbs, Austria decided herself to fall 
upon Serbia — M. Giolitti has given us irrefutable 
proofs of this. And now we are going to allow 
ourselves to imitate M. Giolitti and produce 
another proof which hitherto has remained un- 
known. 

In May, 1913, Count Berchtold charged the 
Austro- Hungarian Minister in Bucharest to make 
a communication to the Roumanian Government 
(to which both the Serbs and the Greeks had 
appealed in view of the possibility of attack by 
Bulgaria), and the communication was this : 
" Austria will defend Bulgaria by force of arms." 
In other words, Roumania, although the ally of 
Austria, would be attacked by Austria if she 
opposed the crushing of Serbia ! 

Count Andrassy can put his hands on this 
document in the Ballplatz, but our Minister of 
Foreign Affairs will find no copy of it in our 
archives, because Count Berchtold's note was 
only read to a single minister — myself. Though 
I was not the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
Prince Furstenberg read it aloud to me, and 
my reply was such that he refrained from 



THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 109 

delivering it to the person for whom it was really 
intended. 

Events gradually became as clear as the day. 
On two different occasions in 1913, Austria- 
Hungary tried to make war on Serbia. She 
was prevented from doing so by Germany, 
Italy and Roumania, but she did not give up the 
idea. 

In April, 1914, at Bucharest she put forward 
the idea of a preventive war very seriously. 
When the crime of Serajevo took place she was 
on the alert, we know with what result. 

It is now quite certain that the tragedy of 
Serajevo was a pretext and not a cause of the 
war. It is known that the person guilty of 
provoking this monstrous conflict was Count 
Tisza, who because of his great ability was in 
charge of Austrian policy during the months that 
led up to the war. 

It is no use to argue that, in the days im- 
mediately preceding the declaration of war, 
Count Tisza and Berchtold, realising that their 
game was turning into a tragedy, took fright 
and wished to retreat, but were prevented 
from doing so by the impatience of the German 
Emperor. 

Count Tisza, who had been miraculously de- 
livered from the Archduke Francis Ferdinand — 
whose anti-Magyarism was an open secret — saw 
in this very incident an unique opportunity of 
consolidating the dominion of the Magyars in 
Hungary and the dominion of Hungary in the 
Empire. He hurled himself into the adventure 



110 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

with his overbearing energy, that brutal energy 
which had so often been exercised in the Parlia- 
ment at Budapesth. 

Tisza took the risk of Europe being drenched 
in blood in order that Magyarism might triumph. 
He succeeded, but it is only just that, among 
those things which have been struck down by 
the eternal Nemesis, the crime of Magyarism 
should be the most heavily punished. 



King Charles of Roumania 



XIII 
KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 

I DO not propose here to draw a portrait or even 
a sketch of King Charles. One day it is my 
intention to outline in detail the features of 
this King I knew so well, who without being a 
great man was undeniably a personality. I will 
do it with complete impartiality, for I have never 
been — and it is not in me to be — a courtier, but 
at the same time with the sympathy I naturally 
feel for a sovereign whose adviser I was during 
so many years. For the moment I only wish 
to say enough to render intelligible his attitude 
during the war. 

King Charles was one of those spirits, cast in 
a narrow, circumscribed mould, which are just 
as incapable of a folly as of action on a great 
scale. He had impeccable tact, a marvellous 
capacity for seeing both sides of every question, 
tireless industry, a sound sense which could easily 
be mistaken for genuine intelligence, a deep 
sense of duty, cultivation unusual in a monarch, 
perfect manners, a patience which sometimes 
seemed, quite wrongly, like indifference, and 
with all this a great and quite legitimate regard 
for what history would say of him in the 



114 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

future. For normal times, therefore, he was 
remarkably well equipped. But for moments 
of crisis the characteristics I have enumerated 
are inadequate and almost tiresome. With all 
his powers, King Charles, whose physical courage 
was assuredly beyond question, was lacking in 
moral courage, and the very idea of initiative 
was foreign to him. It is this combination of 
qualities and defects, emphasised by age, which 
explains the part played by the King during the 
world-war. So far as it specially relates to 
Roumanian policy I do not propose to describe 
his attitude. The whole situation will be dealt 
with fully in my coming Memoirs on the origin 
of the war and the share taken in it by Roumania. 

To tell all I know about those who have played 
any part in these unprecedented circumstances 
is a debt I owe to history, and perhaps, when 
everything that took place behind the scenes 
is known, some moments of deplorable hesitation 
and moral weakness, otherwise inexplicable, will 
be understood. Inevitably I shall have to con- 
cern myself from the outset with the position 
of King Charles, not only for what he did himself 
but above all for what others did in their eager- 
ness to anticipate his thoughts and his wishes. 
I only desire now to relate his opinions on the 
world war and its consequences. 

King Charles, it is fair to say, was no 
admirer of the Emperor William. The Kaiser's 
stormy and ill-regulated activity was utterly 
distasteful to him ; and besides he cherished a 
genuine love of peace. He had too much sense 



KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 115 

to overlook the peril and misery involved in a 
general war or to face it with a light heart. 
Again, in justice to the King, let me add that 
within his limits he really worked for peace. 
I shall never forget that in February and March, 
1913, King Charles was the one convinced cham- 
pion of my policy, the object of which was to 
prevent a sanguinary conflict between Bulgaria 
and ourselves, a conflict which would at that 
time inevitably have resulted in universal war. 
It is true that at a certain moment he deserted 
me, but, when I none the less maintained an 
absolute non possumus, the King frankly con- 
fessed to me that he would never have given 
way to the war party if he had not been certain 
that I would stand my ground. Monarchs some- 
times make us unexpected confidences. King 
Charles once spent a full half-hour in explaining 
to me why he was fundamentally incapable of 
gratitude ! 

Until 1912 the King had lived in the conviction 
that the general war would not break out during 
his lifetime. In the Autumn of 1912 he sent his 
nephew — now King Ferdinand of Roumania — 
to Berlin to learn the intentions of the Emperor 
William. The Crown Prince brought back the 
answer that the Emperor believed a conflict 
between pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism to be 
inevitable, but that he hoped it would not take 
place while he lived. King Charles for his part 
was so convinced of the stability of peace that he 
ventured in the Spring of 1914 to receive a visit 
from the Czar at Constanza, which he would 



116 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

never have done had he thought that a few months 
afterwards he might have to consider the possi- 
bility of declaring war on him. Even on July 
9th, 1914, when King Charles confided to me at 
Sinaia the Kaiser's great secret — namely, that he 
had decided to bring about the European war — he 
added that this would not take place for three or 
four years. That the old King was quite honest 
in saying so I am absolutely convinced for a 
thousand reasons, the strongest of which, based 
on his own temperament, is that had King 
Charles imagined that the world-war on which 
the Kaiser had determined would break out 
twenty-two days later, he would have begun at 
once to take steps to ensure that his personal 
policy should at least have every possible chance 
of success. In point of fact, he took no such 
step until the days just preceding the declaration 
of war. Now during the whole of his reign he 
had subordinated everything to the single idea of 
making himself the autocrat of Roumania's 
foreign policy. He would not have left himself 
completely unarmed on the day of the crisis 
had he known beforehand the date on which that 
crisis would occur. 

Before the meeting of the Crown Council on 
August 3rd, 1914, King Charles had confined 
any action on his own part solely to conversations 
with his Ministers. Of these conversations 
history will have more to say. The cardinal 
point, which is within my personal knowledge, 
is that the King always contended that England 
would remain neutral. Like nearly all Germans, 



KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 117 

King Charles was not merely ignorant of England, 
but totally incapable of understanding her. The 
Anglo-Saxon world is always surprised that 
Germans are as blind as they are where England 
is concerned : the truth is that, apart from very 
rare and partial exceptions, the German is 
organically unable to appreciate the English 
spirit. England was simply excluded from the 
old King's calculations, and with the tone of 
authority which monarchs are accustomed to 
use, especially on subjects which they know 
nothing about, he pronounced his opinion as if 
it were gospel. 

King Charles was equally ignorant of the 
workings of the Italian mind. He could not 
believe that Italy would dare to detach herself 
from Germany, and the attitude she actually 
adopted disconcerted no less than it surprised 
him. So convinced was he that Italy would not 
venture to separate herself from her all-powerful 
allies, that when the Italian Minister came to 
inform him confidentially of the intentions of 
his Government, in the event of war resulting from 
the ultimatum to Serbia, and emphasised the 
fact that he was only authorised to communicate 
this to the King on the understanding that 
his Majesty pledged himself to repeat no word of 
it to anyone, King Charles naively asked him if 
he must keep it a secret even from Berlin. The 
Minister's answer was that this went without 
saying, since when the Italian Government 
wished to make a communication to the German 
Government, it would take particular care to do 



118 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

so at Berlin and' not at Sinai a. It should be 
added that there was no love lost between these 
two. The King disliked the Italian Minister 
and the latter reciprocated his sentiments with 
interest. 

Given these views on England and Italy, 
together with his profound admiration for 
Germany's military organisation and the opinions 
which were so widely entertained in half-informed 
circles on the military deficiencies of France, 
it is far from surprising that King Charles allowed 
himself to be convinced, not only that Germany 
would win, but that she would do so very rapidly. 
When one considers his conduct during the sum- 
mer and autumn of 1914, which accorded so 
ill with the higher interests of the country he 
had made his own, one must take into account 
the extenuating circumstance that, with the 
best will in the world, a Roumanian by adoption 
could not be conscious of the problem of our 
national unity in the same sense as a Roumanian 
by birth, and that the King was more than 
sincere in his belief that Germany could not be 
beaten. 

When at the Crown Council of August 3rd, 
1914, the King told us that by our refusal to 
allow him to enter the war at the side of the 
Central Empires we had destroyed the whole 
great work of the Roumanian renaissance, that 
we had ruined our country for ever, and that the 
immediate future would show us how right he 
was, he was perfectly sincere. He was sure 
of a German victory, and King Charles was never 



KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 119 

one of those who can rise to the level of under- 
standing that it is better to be beaten in the 
defence of right than to follow the call of trium- 
phant wrong. 

So little did King Charles believe in the possi- 
bility of resisting Germany, that some days after 
the famous Crown Council he was at pains to 
inform me exactly how the war would develop. 
According to him, it was to last, at the most, 
until December, and in January, if not sooner, 
the Peace Conference, which would change the 
organisation of the world from top to bottom, 
would be called together. Before the 15th of 
September the Emperor William was to be in 
Paris. Immediately afterwards a revolution 
would break out in France, and Germany would 
grant her defeated enemy a peace, generous 
beyond all expectation, only depriving her of her 
colonies and a mere trifle of territory. Germany, 
added the King, would never repeat the error of 
maintaining the Republic in France. On the 
contrary, she would help in the restoration of 
the monarchy, in the person of Prince Victor 
Napoleon. Once peace was signed in France, 
the Emperor would turn with all his force against 
Russia, and before December would achieve 
the task, which had been too much for Napoleon, 
of occupying Moscow and Petrograd. This would 
be the end of the war, to be followed by the 
dismemberment of Russia on the lines of the 
famous scheme dating from Bismarck's time, 
which, however, it must be remembered, the 
great Chancellor insisted should only be carried 



120 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

out in concert with England. It is needless to 
dwell on what I said in reply to this fantastic 
dream, which from the lips of a man ordinarily 
so full of common-sense as King Charles, im- 
pressed me very strangely. Quite vainly I tried 
to make him understand that there would be no 
revolution in France, that there would be no 
restitution of the monarchy, and that it was 
incomprehensible that the Napoleons, children 
of victory, should ever owe the recovery of their 
throne to a defeat. The King seemed to have 
been hypnotised. The more he spoke to me 
the more conscious I became of that terribly 
intoxicating quality in the idea of German 
omnipotence, which could at so great a distance 
enchain the mind of an old man whose deliberate 
judgment had always been his master quality. 

King Charles was so wholly and utterly 
convinced that Germany must win that he 
quite openly criticised his nephew, King Albert, 
of whom he was really fond, for what he called 
his fatal error in opposing the march of the 
German troops through Belgium. There was 
something very painful to me in the King's 
insistence on this subject, and one August day, 
when he happened to say that the war had not 
brought to the front a single great man, I replied 
that he was mistaken, for there was already one 
name inscribed on the page of immortality — 
that of his nephew, King Albert, of whom he 
had full cause to be proud. And since the King 
maintained his point of view that another policy 
would have been more to Belgium's advantage, 



KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 121 

I repeated to him the answer I had given the even- 
ing before to the German Minister, when he, 
too, had said the same thing. I had asked the 
German Minister if he had never sacrificed his 
interest to his honour. When he assured me that 
he would never do anything else, I replied in my 
turn that nations had the right to consider 
their personal honour as well as individuals. 

On the anniversary of Sedan, or the day 
before, the Emperor William telegraphed from 
Rheims to King Charles that he could assure 
him, after having consulted his military chiefs, 
that at length France lay at his feet. The King 
enjoyed that day the last genuine gratification 
of his life. Not that he hated France, far from 
it ; nothing would have pleased him better 
than an understanding between France and 
Germany, but he thought he saw his forecast 
justified. The Sovereign, who had been touched 
to his innermost being by discovering his in- 
ability to impose his will on Roumania, as he 
had hitherto done throughout his reign, cherished 
a last hope of at least being able to say to us one 
da} : " You see, I was right." Further, it is by 
no means certain that he did not hope to revive 
his policy and see Roumania, after all, at Ger- 
many's side when the German victory was estab- 
lished beyond dispute. That this was his hope 
I myself believe. 

Cruel awakening as the battle of the Marne 
was for King Charles, he tried to deceive himself 
on the consequences of that critical event. I 
saw him a few days after this marvellous victory, 



122 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

which will remain one of the happiest and most 
significant dates in the annals of mankind. 
The King told me that what had happened was 
nothing but a strategic retreat ; as always, he 
clung to the idea that the German army could not 
be beaten. I could not control myself and, for- 
getting the respect due to his position and his 
years, I explained to him, in unrestrained terms, 
the absurdity of the idea that an army, which 
had sacrificed everything for the sake of advanc- 
ing at headlong speed, had determined to lose 
all the benefit of this forward movement without 
having been defeated. King Charles — the words 
dropping slowly from his lips in a fashion which 
told plainly how his spirit had been overwhelmed 
by a reality he had never dared to suspect — 
said to me very gently, " Perhaps, then, I am 
mistaken ; perhaps you are right ; perhaps 
they have been beaten." The more I think of 
this conversation the more I am conscious of 
King Charles' moral distress during this last 
period of his life. I often saw him then, although 
I never asked for an audience. It was always 
the King, deeply pained as he was by the cam- 
paign I was conducting against Germany, who 
sent for me. 

At one of these interviews our talk touched 
on the name of his sister, the Countess of Flanders, 
mother of King Albert. In a tone of deep 
despair the old King said to me : " God has 
been good to her, he has taken her before this 
terrible day. Up to now the Almighty has been 
good to me also, but he has deserted me at last. 



KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 123 

How much better it would have been for me to 
die before this war." I was deeply touched, 
and answered him that I perfectly understood, 
and that for him indeed it would have been 
better had he died before war broke out. It 
was with these melancholy reflections that my 
last serious interview with King Charles came to an 
end, and I am convinced that it was the spectacle 
of the collapse of his fondest beliefs that hastened 
his death. 

He was one more victim of the belief which, 
for every German had become a maxim of life, 
that Germany was so strong that she was in- 
vincible. Before the battle of the Marne he 
expressed it by saying, " For a century pan- 
Germanism will be supreme : then will come the 
era of the Slav." King Charles believed the day 
of the Latin world was done, and as for the 
Anglo-Saxon world, he never even began to 
understand it. 



Herr Riedl 



XIV 

HERR RIEDL 

DURING the Balkan crisis Roumania found 
herself in a most painful position. She had 
let the opportune moment pass for dis- 
cussing with Bulgaria the pushing of her frontier 
beyond the Danube. The best moment was before 
Bulgaria mobilised, or at any rate the few days 
between the calling-up order and the beginning of 
the campaign. It was not till after the battle of 
Lule Burgas, when a new Government, in which 
my party held half the portfolios, came into 
office, that overtures with Bulgaria were begun. 
We know how difficult they were. 

Russia did not conceal her intention of help- 
ing Bulgaria, if it so happened that we attacked 
her. 

The eventuality of Roumania asking for 
Austrian aid also came into the category of 
possibilities. 

It was at that moment Austria thought fit to 
hand us the note prepared in anticipation of 
her eventual assistance. She sent a M. Riedl to 
Bucharest, a gentleman I prefer calling Herr 
Riedl, for rarely have I seen so representative 
a type of a man replete with that particular 

127 



128 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

form of bookish, undigested information which 
is almost a monopoly of the German race. 

He filled some very high position in the Vien- 
nese bureaucracy, and was the confidential agent 
of Francis Ferdinand, some said his future 
Finance Minister. His mind was most dogmatic. 
It is hardly worth while to add that he knew 
nothing about human psychology. Germans find 
it an inaccessible realm. 

Herr Riedl's first business was with our Minister 
of Finance and our Minister of Commerce. I 
don't know whether our Finance Minister saw 
through him, but our Minister of Commerce 
did, and rang me up to tell me Riedl had asked 
him to conclude a Customs Union with Austria- 
Hungary, neither more nor less. He added that 
Herr Riedl was coming on to see me. 

He came, and stayed with me for over an hour. 
The talk consisted, for the most part, of a mono- 
logue. His French was bad, but it did not 
prevent him from saying what he thought. He 
became quite lost among his own theories and 
statements. He arranged facts to suit himself, 
instead of basing his theories on existing facts. 
His dogmatism in no wise precluded his having 
recourse to cunning. Herr Riedl, in fact, would 
have made an excellent diplomatist to deal with 
imbeciles. He would have impressed them by 
his scientific jargon and he would have taken 
them in by his appearance of candour. 

Herr Riedl began by laying down that Turkey 
in Europe must be divided amongst the Balkan 
nations. Therefore Austria, who stood to lose 



HERR RIEDL 129 

the Turkish Market, had a claim to economic 
compensation, and in dealing with this question 
of compensation she was anxious to arrive first 
at an understanding with Roumania. If we 
made difficulties she would begin with Bulgaria. 
The blackmail was obvious. 

Herr Riedl, who was out to ask for a Customs 
Union, was careful not to mention these words. 
He preferred a Preferential Tariff. 

He explained to me at some length that the 
system known as the most-favoured nation treat- 
ment had had its day, and that in future the world 
would advance to the tune of the preferential 
tariff. Austria wished to inaugurate the system, 
and it consisted in this. Austria, in return for 
a certain limited quantity of our food products — 
the quantity necessary for her own consumption — 
would allow us a preference, and we were to do the 
same for certain industrial products from Austria, 
but we were not to be allowed to grant a similar 
preference to other nations. The system was 
to be carried into effect when our existing com- 
mercial treaties expired, but we were to conclude 
the agreement immediately. 

When I objected that we should thus run the 
risk of having no other state to trade with us, 
he recognised that this was quite possible. 
Austria and Roumania would then have a tariff 
war with all the rest of the world. And when 
I said that all it meant was our entry into a 
Customs Union with Austria, he was obliged to 
admit that I was right. 

I pointed out to him that his system had not 



130 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

been tried anywhere, and he instanced the 
preferential tariffs of Canada and South Africa 
in favour of England. " But they are parts of 
the British Empire," I said, " and Roumania 
is a state independent of Austria." He pre- 
tended not to understand my objection. At 
bottom he knew well enough that for us to enter a 
Customs Union with Austria would mean the 
loss of our independence. Probably he thought 
that we should be nattered by this prospect. 

I proved to him at length why we never could 
accept his system, and I explained to him that 
we meant to develop our industries. I told 
him we wished to control our own tariff system, 
and that, as for our cereals, our wood and our 
petrol, we could export them everywhere, especi- 
ally to the west and to Germany, without any 
preference in the Austrian market. I added 
that we clung too tightly to our political and 
economic independence to be tempted by the 
dole of a little extra profit on our cereals. 

Then he let his imagination loose. He told 
me that the world could no longer continue 
as it was, that Europe must organise herself 
against the tyranny of pirate powers and of 
America. 

He divided old Europe into three groups. 
The first, composed of England and France, 
were pirate states, which lived not by their own 
production but by exploiting colonies. He de- 
veloped this nonsense with so much gravity and 
emphasis that I had great difficulty in preventing 
myself from laughing. The two pirate states 



HERR RIEDL 131 

ought to be hunted out of the European market 
and isolated and left to pine alone. 

The second group consisted of Russia, who had 
no right to remain in Europe. She ought to 
be hunted into Asia, or at any rate banished 
beyond Moscow. Russia ought to be cut off 
from the Baltic and from the Black Sea, and, thus 
reduced, should be left to her proper economic 
fate. 

The rest of Europe was to be organised into a 
great Tariff Union, of which the Austro-Rouman- 
ian agreement was to be the corner stone. He 
said that Austria would take upon herself to get 
the consent of Germany to his scheme. Once 
this was done, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and 
Holland, the states of the north and the states 
cut away from Russia would be compelled to 
enter this Union, and the world would be trans- 
formed. 

When I objected that Germany had much to 
lose in such an arrangement, as she risked for- 
feiting that oversea commerce which played so 
great a part in her national economy, he replied 
that it was precisely in order to fight the United 
States that the new organisation of Europe had 
become necessary. And he let himself go about 
the American invasion, the American danger 
and so on. 

He was immensely astonished when I told 
him that I saw nothing to worry about in the 
development of America, that it was perfectly 
natural, and that the hegemony of the white 
races would pass to the other side of the Atlantic. 



132 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

" Just think," I said. " The nations over there 
are not hampered by our military slavery, our 
prejudices, our monarchies, our aristocracies. 
For this reason they are greatly superior to us, 
and it is impossible that they should not get 
the upper hand." 

At that moment I was not able to add the 
strongest argument of all — the madness of a 
universal war, which has brought the transfer 
of this hegemony nearer by half a century. 

I think this was the climax for Herr Riedl. 
He realised that there was nothing to be done 
with me, and though he still paid calls and pre- 
tended to take quite seriously the promises 
made to him of examining his system carefully, 
he was under no illusions, and went back to 
Vienna. 

I have never heard of him since. 



Count Szeczen 



XV 

COUNT SZECZEN 

COUNT SZECZEN was the last Austro- 
Hungarian ambassador in Paris, and we 
must hope he will remain the last. What- 
ever survives of the Hapsburg monarchy, if by ill 
fortune anything does survive, it will never be able 
to afford the luxury of having an ambassador. 

There is nothing either good or bad about 
Count Szeczen which makes him stand out. He 
is just one of those many Counts out of which the 
Dual Empire manufactured diplomatists. If he 
takes the trouble to look at my souvenirs he would 
find out that he was the first Hapsburg diplomat 
to appear to me under a new and purely Magyar 
form. Since then I have seen many more of 
them. But before I met Count Szeczen I had 
only met what are called " Kaiserlicks " even 
among the Magyars. My memory of Szeczen 
is distinct because of that. Even twenty years 
ago, though he represented the Dual Monarchy 
and received his instructions from Vienna, he was 
Magyar, very Magyar and nothing but Magyar. 
At the time of which I am speaking he was 
first Secretary of Legation at Bucharest, under 
Count Goluchowsky. There was an agitation 

135 



136 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

at the time in our country over the Roumanians 
in Hungary. The Magyars had made the rule 
to which they subjected non-Magyar national- 
ities in their midst harsher, and naturally we 
were not able to hide the sense of bitterness 
which Magyar injustice left in our souls. The 
press was violent and all sorts of demonstrations 
took place. 

Similarly the Austro-Hungarian Government 
began to take umbrage, and the Roumanian 
Government, of which I was a member, did not 
know which way to turn. 

I was very intimate with Count Szeczen. We 
saw each other constantly, and tacitly agreed 
never to touch on the question of the Roumanians 
in Hungary. This was often awkward, but we 
pretended not to be aware of it. Our intimacy 
was only possible on these terms. 

One day Count Szeczen broke the silence. 
An incident had occurred which was of no par- 
ticular gravity, but it was something Count 
Szeczen could not swallow. I think a Hungarian 
flag had been torn up. He had just had lun- 
cheon with me, and he made up his mind to speak 
to me as soon as we were alone together in my 
study. He began bitterly by imputing motives 
of tolerance or complicity to our Government 
as we had not taken action against the demon- 
strators, and, warming up, he said word for word 
almost as follows : — " You are now playing a 
dangerous game. You accept the axiom that we 
can never come to an understanding with Russia 
and you count on a future war between us and 



COUNT SZECZEN 137 

the Russians. Well, you are mistaken. If the 
time ever comes that we are convinced that we 
cannot count on you as the loyal ally of the 
Magyar Union, the only state which concerns us 
and one which we would defend with the last 
drop of our blood, we shall come to an under- 
standing with Russia. After all, the Carpathians 
make a first rate frontier, and Galicia, Roumania, 
Constantinople even, are as nothing when it is a 
question of preserving to Hungary its character 
ap a Magyar Union. Believe me, nothing is more 
possible than a definite and permanent under- 
standing between Magyars and Russians. We 
shall be on one slope of the Carpathians, looking 
towards the Adriatic, they will be on the other 
slope, facing towards the Black Sea. And that 
will be the end for ever of the Roumanian question, 
not only in Hungary but everywhere." 

I let Count Szeczen unfold his scheme. He was 
furious, and paid no heed to the fact that it was 
very strange that an Austro - Hungarian diplo- 
mat should speak in this way to a Roumanian 
Minister. 

When I replied that I had never had any 
doubt about the hostility of Magyar feeling 
towards us, but that all the same his threats had 
no effect on me, as I did not believe in the possi- 
bility of a Russo-Magyar alliance, he saw his 
mistake and stammered out an excuse that was 
no excuse. As we neither of us had any wish 
to quarrel we let the discussion drop. 

That day Szeczen had revealed to me the 
depths of his Magyar soul. This proud predatory 



138 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

people will never become resigned to live its own 
life as a national state like England, France, 
Spain or Italy. They mean to dominate other 
nationalities or perish. Any other solution is 
impossible. 

Count Karolyi's policy cannot be explained in 
any other way. It is identical with that with 
which Count Szeczen in an angry moment threat- 
ened me more than twenty years ago. Often 
what appears to be new is really old. 



Sir Donald Mackenzie W^allace 



XVI 
SIR DONALD MACKENZIE WALLACE 

MANY, many years ago, during the last 
period of the reign of the great Queen 
Victoria, Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace 
was my guest at Sinaia. Sir Donald was very well 
known in England. He began life in diplomacy, 
directed the foreign policy of the Times for a very 
long period, was Lord Dufferin's right hand man 
in India, and was extremely intimate up till the 
day of his death with King Edward, then Prince 
of Wales. Sir Donald wrote a classic on Russia, 
a book which has been translated into all languages. 
He was chosen by King Edward to accompany 
King George, when Prince of Wales, in his tour 
round the Empire, and he wrote an account of the 
trip. He attended the peace conferences of Ports- 
mouth and Algeciras ; and he was the guest of Sir 
Arthur Nicholson at Petrograd when the Anglo- 
Russian alliance was concluded. 

I have had many interesting interviews with 
Sir Donald during my life. The one I am about 
to relate is of extraordinary importance. 

We were both walking in a splendid forest, 
and our conversation had turned to world 
politics. Sir Donald said : 

" The present policy of the European Powers 

141 



142 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

is absurd. We are all victims of the prejudices 
of the elder statesmen who perpetuate the truths 
of their youth which no longer correspond with 
actuality. For example, in England we are 
dominated by two so-called axioms, both equally 
out of date. We live in dread of the bogey of a 
Russia wishing to chase us out of India, and we 
believe ourselves the eternal rival of France. 
Now all that is untrue — utterly untrue. There 
is enough room in Asia for England as well as 
Russia ; perhaps we already take up more room 
there than the Asiatics approve of. Anglo- 
French rivalry is a prehistoric peep dating from 
the epoch when there were only two great powers 
in the world, France and England. To-day it 
means nothing whatever. England always has 
been and always must be an essentially pacific 
power, essentially conservative so far as inter- 
national politics are concerned. France, for a 
thousand reasons, is now an equally pacific 
and conservative power. The only revolutionary 
power in international politics is Germany. It 
is Germany who keeps the world on the alert, 
it is Germany alone who threatens its peace. 
You may expect to see great changes when the 
elder statesmen have given way to another gen- 
eration. You will see England become France's 
greatest friend, and the famous antagonism be- 
between England and Russia relegated to a 
museum of antiquities." 

When Sir Donald predicted this, speaking so 
succinctly and frankly, it was a new point of 
view. But since then it has all happened. 



SIR DONALD MACKENZIE WALLACE 143 

That evening we spoke of Roumania, of her 
people, of her future. Sir Donald had studied 
the question of the Roumanians in Hungary 
in detail. He had even been to Brashov, Sibiu 
and Blaj, the districts chiefly concerned, and 
had talked to the representative Roumanians 
living there. 

Suddenly he asked me the great question : 

" You have a treaty of alliance with Austria — 
you needn't deny it, I know it. But do you 
think that when the moment comes for you to 
put it into effect you will be able to do it ? Per- 
sonally I cannot see how you can." 

" I do not know whether we have a treaty of 
alliance with Austria or not,'' I replied, for I 
was bound to absolute secrecy. "If it exists 
I agree with you no one in the world could carry 
it into effect." 

Sir Donald must have made a mental note of 
my statement, which was as clear as his own. 

Circumstances have shown that I, in my turn, 
was a true prophet. 



Baron Banffy 



XVII 
BARON BANFFY 

I SAW Baron Banffy, the most overbearing of 
all Hungarian ministers (and that is saying a 
good deal), but once. It was in the first days 
of January, 1896. Banffy was a big cheery fellow 
with pointed moustaches, who looked like a 
Magyarised edition of a typical French official. 

He was a second-rate man, but in spite of this 
his extreme energy imposed on people even 
when he was expressing himself in a language 
he spoke badly. Banffy came from Transyl- 
vania, and could speak Roumanian. As a prefet, 
for he had begun by being a prefet, he had served 
a good apprenticeship in working the political 
oracle among the electorate. He did the same 
thing later on as Prime Minister of Hungary. 

When I was in Vienna in January, 1896, he 
intimated his wish to make my acquaintance 
through a Hungarian deputy of the Independent 
Party. The reason that the Hungarian Premier 
wanted to see me was not far to seek. It was 
merely curiosity. It was because I was the first 
Roumanian Minister to give subsidies, secret 
subsidies, not only to the Roumanian schools 
and churches of Transylvania, but also to 

147 



148 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

newspapers and political committees. In order 
to subsidise the papers I commissioned journalists 
to write class books ostensibly for use in the 
Roumanian schools of Macedonia, and I paid 
for the work right royally. I need hardly explain 
that the class books were not always written. 

Banffy after a while had scented something of 
this political activity, of which, as a matter of 
fact, my colleagues in the Cabinet were unaware, 
with the exception of the Prime Minister, 
Lascar Catgari — and I only told him after having 
done it for two and a half years. He did not 
blame me, but my political opponents in Rou- 
mania denounced my activities, and it was in this 
way that Banffy came to be certain of what I 
was up to. As I had been turned out of office 
in October, 1895, Banffy was anxious to see the 
enemy of his people at close quarters. 

After leaving Vienna I stayed at Budapesth, 
and asked for an audience from the Hungarian 
Prime Minister. He received me in the wonder- 
ful Royal Palace of Bude, from which one gets 
such a glorious view over the Danube and over 
Pesth. Banffy quite naturally spoke to me on 
the subject of the Roumanians in Hungary. 

He began rather brusquely by saying, " I hope 
you are not going to tell me that you don't want 
to annex Transylvania." " No," I replied, " I 
shall not tell you that ; if I did you would not 
believe it, and would only think that you were 
dealing with a liar or with a man who does not 
love his country. I want to annex Transylvania, 
but I can't do it." 



BARON BANFFY 149 

And then in my turn I said to him, " I hope 
you are not going to tell me that you don't wish 
to move the frontiers of the Magyar state to the 
Black Sea." With real good temper Banffy 
replied, " No, I won't tell you that. I do want 
to move Hungary's frontier to the Black Sea, 
but I can't do it." 

Then I said, " As the historical case between 
us cannot be settled either in your favour or in 
mine, and since we are neighbours, is it not 
possible for us to find a modus vivendi ? You 
have made the conditions for Roumanians in 
Hungary intolerable, why don't you change 
them ? " 

Banffy began a series of explanations, one 
falser than the other, in order to prove that there 
had been no oppression. And by way of some- 
thing final he asked me why Roumanians in 
Hungary would not take part in elections and 
would not come to the Parliament at Budapesth 
to put forward their grievances ? " I must 
explain that at this period the Roumanians 
of Hungary had adopted the policy of passive 
resistance, which included abstention from the 
farce known in Hungary as elections. I looked 
Baron Banffy straight between the eyes, knowing 
that I was dealing with a vain man from whom 
one might obtain anything by flattering his 
vanity. " Look here, Baron Banffy," I said, 
" we both know what elections are in our re- 
spective countries. Can you tell me perfectly 
truthfully that if Roumanians were to offer 
themselves for election and you did not wish 



150 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

them to be elected there would be a single one 
who could be returned against your will ? " 
Banffy answered, " Not a single one if I did not 
wish it." Thus I got him to discard his little 
joke about Roumanians participating in elections, 
a proceeding devoid of all sense unless Rouman- 
ians and Magyars were to come to a mutual 
understanding. Then going back to the idea of 
a modus vivendi, I said. " I have no mandate 
for the Roumanians of Hungary,, I am not 
speaking in their name, but would it be impossible 
for you to come to an agreement similar to that 
you have made with the Saxons in Transylvania 
and in this way protect their churches, their 
schools and certain electoral divisions ? " 

Banffy answered with the most brutal frank- 
ness. " As for that, never. The Saxons in 
Transylvania are but 230,000 in number and 
they are more than 700 miles from the Germans 
of Germany, whereas the Roumanians in Hungary 
are three and a half millions strong and are 
geographically contiguous to the Roumanians 
of Roumania. It can never be" 

We continued to discuss the matter. I asked 
him whether it would not at least be possible to 
give Transylvania the same electoral franchise 
as Hungary and the secret ballot. 

" Never," answered Banffy once again. 

He rang and ordered the electoral map of the 
Kingdom of Hungary to be brought in. 

" Look at this map," he said, the purely 
Magyar areas of Hungary return ' Kossuthist ' 
deputies, that is to say partisans of a rupture 



BARON BANFFY 151 

with Austria, which would be the end of Magyar 
domination. My Government, like the Govern- 
ments that have gone before and those which 
will follow after, only exists because of the 
division amongst nationalities. With the secret 
ballot we should lose this advantage — in short, 
we could no longer govern." 

After an hour of useless talk Banffy asked me 
if there was a single point on which we agreed. 

" Yes," I said, " we are agreed that we never 
can agree on any point." 

When I rose to bid him farewell we walked 
past the window with the view over the Danube 
and over Pesth. " What a magnificent capital 
you have there," I remarked. " Well, come and 
take it," gaily answered Banffy. 

" Even if I could, I never would take it, but 
its occupation is quite another matter," said I. 

Most of this conversation with Baron Banffy has 
already appeared in the pages of Sir Mount 
Stuart Grant Duff's diary. I had told him 
about it in London some years after it happened. 

Never have I had so clear and categorical an 
explanation from any Hungarian statesman of 
the irremediable antagonism of our two points 
of view. 



Roumanian Policy 



XVIII 
ROUMANIAN POLICY 

IN 1908 I was dining at the house of a great 
friend in Paris. There were a number of 
people there, amongst them two former 
French Foreign Ministers. If they read this 
they will remember the conversation I am about 
to relate. 

One of them, whom we will call X, was a 
widely erudite man and a writer of great talent, 
but the sort of nature which does not retain its 
impressions. The other, Y, was concentrated 
by nature and spoke little and seldom. 

After dinner, when most of the guests had gone 
off to listen to music, we three found ourselves 
alone in the study. 

We talked of Roumania, which had just 
made an act of unnecessary submission to 
Austria, and X suddenly exclaimed : 

: ' The more I think about it, the less I under- 
stand the policy of Roumania. You have no 
chance of becoming a great nation except at 
Hungary's expense. Yet you are the allies of 
Hungary, for make no mistake, Austria no 
longer exists. In reality you are in the first 
place allies of Hungary, and in the second place 

155 



156 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

allies of Germany. It is impossible for me to 
understand your policy." 

"Do you understand the policy of Italy?" 
I asked. 

"Of course," X replied, "it is the policy of 
fear." 

" And why do you think that Italy is the 
only country that is afraid?" 

Y, who had said nothing, began to speak. He 
recognised that the policy of Roumania was to be 
explained by fear, and the conversation turned 
on the profound difference between the Triple 
Alliance and the Triple Entente. In the Triple 
Alliance, or rather the Austro-German alliance, 
there was complete unity of control, as Berlin 
alone was in command ; in the Triple Entente 
the bonds were so intangible that it was difficult 
at the moment to rely on them. 

" What can we do," asked X, "in order to 
show you the great interest we take in your 
happenings and in your future ? " 

Y then said, " All we can do for Roumania is 
to help her to become strong, so that when the 
day of the great catastrophe arrives and she has 
to make her choice, she may choose with perfect 
freedom." 

I thanked these two ex-ministers, and told 
them that in spite of the apparent political 
slavery of Roumania and in spite of the diplo- 
matic folly she had just perpetrated, a folly 
that consisted in informing Sofia that she would 
be obliged to intervene if Bulgaria took advan- 
tage of troubles in Constantinople to attack 



ROUMANIAN POLICY 157 

Turkey — in spite of these things I promised that 
Roumania's choice would be made in perfect 
freedom. 

My friends must now see I was right, and they 
cannot regret the support given us by France 
in 1913. 



Tragedy 



assiS 



XIX 

TRAGEDY 

THE scene was London, on the 27th of July, 
1914. 

In spite of the pacific assurances which 
had in all good faith been given me that morning 
by Prince Lichnowsky, who had been studiously 
kept in ignorance of the warlike designs of the 
Emperor, I saw the world war approaching and 
I was gripped by the horror of it. The last 
chance of salvation lay in adopting the English 
proposal for a conference of the four Great Powers, 
but that had come to nothing owing to Germany's 
refusal to take any part in it. 

Although I was convinced that no one would 
ever make the Roumanian army fight side by 
side with Hungarian troops, yet I was anxious, 
for I could not foresee how the war would open, 
or be certain that Germany and Austria would 
not, by some diabolical stroke of ingenuity, 
arrange things in such a way as to force Russia to 
declare war herself. 

Not having the text of our treaty of alliance 
under my eyes, I could not be sure that we could 
escape its entanglements without appearing to 
violate the letter of our engagement. In par- 
ticular I could not recall exactly how the key 



162 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

phrase, " without provocation on her part,' 
was worded. 

In the afternoon I asked my old friend, the 
Italian Ambassador in London, the Marquis 
Imperiali, to come and see me. Having played 
an important part in affairs in his own country, 
I felt sure he would know the text of the Italian 
treaty, the provisions of which were identical 
with those of the Roumanian treaty which I had 
read through in June, 1908. 

We talked together for a long while over the 
grave peril that threatened European civilisation. 
We hoped against all hope. We even imagined 
we had discovered catchwords which would 
make the war impossible, so monstrous did it all 
seem to us. 

But we did more than this, for we also discussed 
the war as a real possibility. It did not take us 
long to find out, firstly, that we were completely 
agreed that if war did break out the blame would 
be entirely with Germany and the Magyars, and 
secondly, that the fate of the world for generations 
to come must depend on the result of the war. 

We both were clearly of opinion that in the 
event of a German victory the future of Roumania 
as well as Italy would be seriously compromised, 
if not destroyed. Supposing Germany and 
Austria to be the victors, all the risorgimento, 
all the battles and sacrifices of the Italian people 
would be in vain. For Roumania a German 
victory meant even more than this, it meant 
sudden death, while Italy at the worst might 
accustom herself to slow strangulation. 



TRAGEDY 163 

We believed in the wisdom of our respective 
Governments, and we also felt certain that if 
our rulers attempted to force our people to fight 
side by side with the enemies of all liberal civilis- 
ation, our people would resist. All the same 
we asked ourselves, in our wretchedness, whether 
by the literal interpretation of treaties we were 
obliged to acquiesce in race-suicide. 

The Marquis Imperiali had read the treaty — 
as a matter of fact he had done so before I did — 
and we tried together to reconstitute the text, 
but we could not do it. I shall never forget 
our despair, our misery, at not being able to say 
with certainty what the exact wording of the 
treaty really was. Yet on the letter of the 
treaty — for, remember, we had not yet become 
acquainted with the " scrap of paper " doctrine 
— depended our honour and our future. 

" What a tragedy !" we said to each other. 

We both felt tears trickling down our faces, 
and we were not ashamed of them ; but our talk 
came to an end ; and with a prolonged hand-grip 
we said farewell. 

I have never seen the Marquis Imperiali since 
that day, but when he reads this he will forgive 
me for having preserved the memory of his 
tears. We wept together. 



Count c Tisza 



XX 

COUNT TISZA 

IN the great war Count Tisza was the strongest 
statesman the Central Powers had. He was 
the prime mover in unchaining the conflict. 
Tisza provoked the universal carnage, but without 
the backing of Berlin he would not have dared 
to do it, and therefore the real criminal must be 
looked for in Berlin. He ran the war with an energy 
worthy of a better cause, and paid for his crime 
with his life. The punishment has been carried 
out, so the case for the prosecution is closed. 

I only met Tisza once, twenty years ago. He 
was then chairman of the board of a Budapesth 
bank which did business with an industrial 
company in Roumania of which I was chairman. 
We talked business and travel, not a word of 
politics. But this short conversation sufficed 
to give me an idea of his personality. He was 
strong in every sense of the word. Cold as the 
blade of a knife ; with a will of extreme brutality, 
and a demeanour as serious as an English non- 
conformist minister's. 

Though he was a strong man he could never 
be a popular one. He had no magnetism, no 
emotional quality, no outward sign of the divine 

167 



168 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

fire, none of the things that enable a public man 
to influence a crowd. 

I have often wondered how it was possible 
for so strong a man to blunder so badly. He 
committed the unspeakable crime of provoking 
a war that would end Magyar domination, which, 
in Tisza's eyes, was synonymous with Magyar 
patriotism. There evidently must have been 
several reasons why Tisza made such a mistake, 
but Magyar megalomania is not the least of 
them. 

The recollection of my solitary conversation 
with Tisza helps me, however, to understand 
this psychological problem. 

The intellectual isolation in which Tisza lived 
may have had something to say to it, too, for it 
prevented him from realising what was happen- 
ing in other countries. In talking with him I 
asked him whether it was long since he had 
visited the west of Europe. He answered me 
that it was seven years since he had left Austro- 
Hungary and that he felt no need ever to leave 
it again. 

" I should die if I went in for the same regime" 
I said. " I leave Roumania three times a year 
and pass four months in Western Europe, and 
look upon these journeys as a necessity — a sort 
of intellectual hygiene. 

"If we stay at home too long our horizon 
contracts. Little local questions assume an im- 
portance which they do not really possess ; one 
must treat events in the political world as one 
does Mont Blanc ; if one wishes to appreciate 



COUNT TISZA 169 

its size, one must go away from it. I have to 
cross the frontier in order to understand how 
small are the questions which at Bucharest seem 
to me of the first magnitude." 

Tisza listened to me, but did not understand. 
He was satisfied with knowing the Austro- 
Hungarian Monarchy, and more especially the 
Kingdom of Hungary, and from that standpoint 
to judge the course of human events. 

This political myopia must have blinded the 
strongest man the Central Empires possessed 
and led him to unloose a war in which were to 
founder the hegemony of his race, the interests 
of his caste and his own historical reputation. 

One must at any rate do this much justice to 
Tisza. He made his exit from the scene better 
than the two Emperors who had banded them- 
selves together against the liberty of the world. 



T'alaat Pasha 



XXI 

TALAAT PASHA 

T ALA AT PASHA was the strongest man of 
the Young Turk Party. Djavid was better 
informed, Djemal more cultured, Enver 
made more show, but Talaat, without doubt, had 
more strength of character. He was a Turk, but 
a Turk trying to be a modern man without, how- 
ever, imitating the externals of an European. He 
was uneducated ; had read hardly anything, had 
travelled very little, and knew none of those 
things which are a common bond among public 
men in Western countries. Talaat made up 
for all these deficiencies by a will of iron, in- 
domitable courage, and by a quality which is 
unusual among Turks, a quickness of decision 
and a firmness in execution which had nothing 
Oriental about them. 

Like all the Young Turks, Talaat was a Jingo. 
When I saw him for the second time on my 
return from Athens in November, 1913, where I 
had assisted in the conclusion of peace between 
Turkey and Greece, Talaat explained to me how 
he had plotted and brought about the recapture 
of Adrian ople in 1913. It was a wonderful 
example of rashness and of resolution. In 

173 



174 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

twenty-four hours he had forced his will upon 
the Cabinet, the Generals and the Great Powers, 
in order to procure the necessary money to 
carry out an expedition which the Bulgarians 
could easily have turned into a disaster for the 
Turks had they wished to do so. On the eve 
of this coup Talaat had found few people to 
approve of it, on the morrow everyone was his 
accomplice. " As to the Great Powers," said he 
to me, " I knew that they would not move, and 
that the very audacity of the thing would force 
it on them. I shall soon do the same thing when 
I suppress the capitulations. We do not mean 
to have those capitulations any more. I know 
quite well that Europe will protest, but she will 
not act." He showed the same determination in 
discussing the Sultan. I had asked him if the 
Sultan or the heir-apparent might not wish to 
recover the powers of former sovereigns. " We 
will never allow him to," replied Talaat. " We 
are the masters, and if a Sultan thinks he is 
going to run things as he pleases we shall simply 
depose him." 

These qualities of Talaat's were spoilt by a 
spirit of party prejudice, which we in the west 
find some difficulty in realising. For example, 
when after my return from Athens I was dis- 
cussing with Talaat a proposal for an under- 
standing between Turkey and Greece about 
which Venizelos had charged me to sound the 
Turks, I felt that party interests more than 
anything else lay behind the arguments which 
Talaat used to me in countering my proposal. 



TALAAT PASHA 175 

Talaat would have liked to raise the popularity 
of the Young Turk Party by striking at a neigh- 
bour, and his Greek neighbour seemed to him 
the easiest to hit without incurring too big a 
risk. 

When I saw Talaat for the first time he im- 
pressed me by his thoroughly un-Turkish char- 
acteristics. Early in November, 1913, I went 
from Sinaia to Athens under a pretext of a 
pleasure trip, but in reality to try and induce 
Turkey to make peace with Greece. Turkey 
was being encouraged in her attitude by Bulgaria, 
and thought of nothing less than restarting the 
Balkan war. My friend Venizelos was of opinion 
that my going there might perhaps cause the 
Turks to pause in their insane project. 

I said nothing about my intentions to anyone 
in Roumania except King Charles, with whom 
I arranged that if I succeeded the credit of it 
should go to Roumania, but that if I failed the 
blame should be mine for having undertaken a 
mission which no one had charged me with. 

I asked an old friend, a Roumanian of Mace- 
donia, formerly in the Young Turk Government, 
Batzaria by name, to meet me at Constantinople, 
where I only intended stopping a couple of 
hours. I wanted him to tell his friend Talaat, 
whom I did not at that time know, what a 
dangerous game the Turks and Bulgarians were 
playing, and how determined Roumania was not 
to tolerate a new conflagration in the Balkans. 
To my great surprise Talaat himself turned up. 
He made a good impression on me. We talked 



176 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

for more than an hour. He complained that 
my going to Athens at such a moment looked 
like a demonstration against Turkey. I replied 
that I certainly intended to demonstrate in 
favour of peace and against Turkey if she allowed 
herself to be worked up by Bulgar intrigues, 
and added that Roumania was determined to 
strike at anybody, no matter whom, who disturbed 
the peace of Bucharest, and that she was quite 
in a position to do so. 

Talaat was much moved, and we at length 
reached a point at which he requested me to act 
as arbitrator between the Turks and the Greeks 
on all the questions which divided them — and 
they were very numerous — questions which had 
brought about a complete deadlock in the 
negotiations at Athens. I accepted the mission, 
and, as is well known, I succeeded. But at this 
interview I said to Talaat that he must prove to 
me that he represented something different to 
the old Turkey, and must do so by undertaking to 
push the affair through in three days. He 
agreed to this stipulation, an almost unheard-of 
proceeding for a Turk, and as a matter of fact 
everything was put through in Athens in six 
days, though not without difficulties and worries, 
which need not be detailed now. 

Talaat promised to return the visit which I 
had paid to him on my way back from Athens, 
and came to Bucharest in the Spring of 1914, 
when I was no longer a member of the Govern- 
ment. He made the same impression on me, 
of being a determined man, energetic and brave, 



TALAAT PASHA 177 

but completely ignorant of European men and 
affairs. 

The last time I saw him was at Sinaia, and I 
then realised that his blindness must in the 
long run prove fatal to Turkey. 

It is well known that in spite of the peace 
which I had succeeded in negotiating at Athens 
the question of the islands remained to be settled 
between Turkey and Greece. This matter was 
not by its nature a question for Roumanian 
arbitration, but for settlement by the Great 
Powers. 

In the early days of the great European war, 
when I was still at my villa in Sinaia, I learned 
that Talaat, accompanied by Hakki, then pre- 
sident of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies, 
had arranged a meeting in Roumania with the 
Greek delegates, Messrs. Zaimis and Politis, to 
discuss the question of the islands. 

On the way the Turkish delegates stopped 
two or three days at Sofia, which was a clear 
indication of their intentions ; the so-called 
negotiations being but a trap laid by Austria 
and Germany. The discussions were carried 
on at Bucharest, but the Turkish delegates, 
under pretext of seeking country air, established 
themselves at Sinaia. The truth is that they 
wished to be in close touch with the German, 
Bulgarian and Austrian Ministers who were 
then at Sinaia. 

The negotiations did not progress ; they were 
not meant to. The only thing the Turks wanted 
was to find a casus belli against Greece the sooner 

.1.1, M 



178 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

to bring about the conflagration in the whole 
Balkan Peninsula. 

Talaat naively believed that King Charles, 
who against his will had acquiesced in the 
neutrality of Roumania, might still drag the 
country into a war against Russia by allying 
himself with Bulgaria and Turkey. It was 
ridiculous, but although Talaat had plenty of 
determination he was quite ignorant of men and 
things. 

One incident in these precious negotiations is 
worthy of being noted. It is, moreover, the first 
and last occasion on which I had a really serious 
talk with Talaat. 

One evening I was in the Casino at Sinaia, 
having a talk with the Russian and Italian 
Ministers. It was about ten o'clock at night, 
when one of my journalist friends came to warn 
me that the next day the Turkish delegates 
intended to present an ultimatum to the Greek 
delegates at Bucharest, and finish off the 
proceedings by a declaration of war. 

The very idea that the Turks, egged on by 
the Central Powers and by the Bulgarians, 
were about to let loose a fresh Balkan war from 
Bucharest on the hospitable soil of Roumania 
was hateful to me. At once I cast about for 
means to prevent such a calamity happening. 
I knew that Talaat and his colleagues were certain 
to come into the gambling room, as they were 
not due to go to Bucharest until next morning 
at eight o'clock, and as a matter of fact they 
turned up soon after eleven o'clock. I at once 



TALAAT PASHA 179 

spoke to Talaat, and told him that I must have a 
word with him. He tried to put me off by 
making an appointment for the following evening, 
after his return from Bucharest, to which I 
replied that that would be too late, that I must 
speak to him immediately ; that the business 
was one of extreme urgency, and that the least 
he could do was to accede to my request. 

Much against his will Talaat consented, and 
asked me whether Hakki could also take part 
in our conversation. Firmly I replied " No," 
but said that if he wished to communicate what 
I said to Hakki that was his own business, but 
that so far as I was concerned I meant to speak to 
him alone. 

Leading Talaat off into a corner, I made him 
sit down facing me, and the following strange 
conversation began. 

The general public which crowded round the 
baccarat tables paid no attention to us, but the 
Russian and Italian Ministers, who knew what I 
was about, kept their eyes fixed on our little 
group. 

In a sharp voice I told Talaat that I knew of 
his plan for the morrow, and that I asked him, 
in the name of the respect which he owed to 
Roumanian hospitality, to give it up. 

Talaat tried to stammer out that I was mistaken 
as to his intentions and so on. 

I replied that he was wrong to deny it, as I 
knew everything, whereupon Talaat acknow- 
ledged his scheme, and added, " That he was con- 
vinced that sooner or later Roumania would go 



180 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

to war against Russia side by side with Turkey 
and Bulgaria." 

Thoroughly angry, I asked him whether he had 
warned the King of his scheme to provoke war 
while a guest on Roumanian soil. He admitted 
that he had not done so, but stated that he knew 
that the King remained favourable to the policy 
of war in alliance with the Austro-Germans. 
I then pressed Talaat as hard as I could. Carried 
away by my feelings, I gesticulated in a way 
I never do, and so completely forgot the con- 
sideration due to a guest that I told him that 
Roumania would never forget the insult which 
the Turkish delegates were about to offer her by 
thus abusing Roumanian hospitality. 

" You shall not do it in Roumania. I give 
you a fair warning, and believe me that in doing 
so I speak for all Roumania. If you do it you 
will repent of it." 

I pressed Talaat so hard that he ended by 
giving me his word of honour that he would not 
present an ultimatum to Greece next day at 
Bucharest. I suggested to him to propose an 
adjournment of the question sine die. 

" All right," said he, " provided the Greeks 
don't provoke me to-morrow." 

Once I got Talaat's promise to give up his 
plan I added, " I have given you a warning and 
you have frankly heeded me. Now I wish to 
give you a piece of information and a piece of 
advice. The piece of information is this ; owing 
to the ambiguous language of certain personages 
you may perhaps have deluded yourself into 



TALAAT PASHA 181 

thinking that circumstances might arise in which 
Roumania may find herself at war against the 
Powers of the Entente. Well, believe me, that 
will never happen, and nobody in the world — 
understand me clearly, nobody in the world — is 
strong enough to drag Roumania into a war 
against the Powers of the Entente. The exact 
opposite is not only possible but is more than 
probable. I give you this piece of information 
so that you may not deceive yourself in weighing 
the probabilities which will decide the policy 
of your country." 

As Talaat still seemed to doubt whether I 
was speaking from facts, and as he still questioned 
me as to the will of the King, I reiterated my point 
again, and said to him, " No one, absolutely no one, 
is strong enough to prevent Roumania following 
the policy dictated by her national instinct." 

" And now for the piece of advice," I said to 
him. " Providence has not entrusted me with 
the task of looking after the fate of Turkey ; it 
is quite enough for me to worry about that of 
my own country; but I will give you one piece 
of advice as a true friend. Remain neutral. 
Never has Turkey had a better chance of living, 
if she has any vitality in her, than by remaining 
neutral in this war. In return for your neutrality 
demand of the Entente the guarantee of your 
independence, demand the abolition of the 
capitulations. You will get everything, but war 
can bring you nothing. If you are beaten, and 
you will be beaten, you disappear. If you are 
victorious you will get nothing. A victorious 



182 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Germany, even if such a thing is possible, will 
never commit the folly you dream of, of giving 
you the Caucasus or Egypt. She would take 
them for herself if she could ; but once more 
this is merely advice, and the day will come when 
you will see whether it came from a friend or 
not." 

The next day at Bucharest Talaat kept his 
word. 

I warned the Greeks by a letter sent to them 
that very night by special messenger, and the 
conference was adjourned for good. 

Since those days I have never seen Talaat. 
At the time of the English expedition to Gallipoli 
I wrote to him and asked him to make peace with 
the Entente, telling him that it was the last 
chance of salvation for Turkey. Talaat sent me a 
verbal reply to this letter in the Spring of 1916 
by the Roumanian Minister at Constantinople, 
saying that events had proved that he was right 
and that I was wrong. 

But how do things stand to-day ? 



Prince Von £u/ovp 



XXII 

PRINCE VON BULOW 

I HAVE known many of the men who have 
played an important part in German policy. 
Only three of them gave me the impression 
that I had to do with really strong men. Two 
are dead, Kiderlen-Waechter and Baron Marschall. 
The third was Prince von Bulow. 1 

So far from being a man of the past, like the 
Goluchowskys and the Berchtolds, Prince von 
Billow is at this moment a man of to-day. Every- 
thing about him is therefore of interest. He has 
a remarkable mind, one of those minds which 
bring a man to the front in all countries and in 
all ages. Of course he thinks like a German, 
like a reactionary, and like a country gentleman ; 
but in spite of these drawbacks his mind is of the 
most brilliant quality. He possesses remarkable 
clearness of vision, ability to appreciate situa- 
tions, adroitness and understanding. It is im- 
possible to be in his company without feeling 
that he is a man whose family position has 

1 If the Germans had been wise they would have made Prince von 
Bulow their representative at the Peace Congress. He was the only 
man fit to have been entrusted with the part of representing his 
country in defeat, which Talleyrand played so well a century ago, and 
which M. Thiers sustained in 1871. 

185 



186 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

merely been an accessory to a distinguished 
career. 

To say that Prince von Billow is a great man 
would be an exaggeration, and I believe that he 
has sufficient sense not to claim anything of the 
kind. He is even below the level of Kiderlen, 
merely to instance another German, but he is a 
strong man, thoroughly able to understand things 
and to find the best solution of a given problem. 
In the intellectual desert of German public life 
that alone is a great quality. 

Prince von Biilow is also a man of great personal 
charm, which is always to the good, and his 
conversation is most entertaining. Although one 
must not expect Bismarckian aphorisms to fall 
from his lips, yet his conversation is not tainted 
by any touch of brutality, roughness or arrogance. 

At first sight one can almost believe oneself 
to be dealing with a Latin, so flexible, so in- 
sinuatingly frank and almost caressing is his 
manner of talking, and though it would be 
wrong to be taken in by an appearance, the charm 
is undeniable. 

The first time I had a serious political talk 
with Prince von Biilow was towards the end of the 
year 1888. In April he had been appointed 
Minister at Bucharest, and was to have remained 
there until December, 1893. He came from 
Petrograd, and was seemingly thoroughly con- 
versant with Russian affairs, and he told me 
that he had spent the last few weeks in the 
Russian capital studying the Roumanian question 
in the archives of the German Embassy. His 



PRINCE VON BULOW 187 

studies had given him, he said, great confidence 
in the virtues and ability of the Roumanian 
people, for whom he foresaw a great future. 

No doubt this was a very good way of beginning 
a conversation with me on the problems of 
European policy, in so far as they affected Rou- 
mania and the Roumanian people, for, unlike the 
late Kiderlen, Prince von Biilow recognised the 
existence of the nationality question. 

In this long conversation, which touched on all 
subjects and consequently on our own public 
men, we came to talk about Cogalniceano, 
who was not only one of our most shining lights, 
but what is more important, a really great 
man. 

Biilow did not understand why Cogalniceano 
was inimical to the policy of an Austro-German 
alliance. He was too intelligent to attribute 
mean motives to Cogalniceano, for he knew his 
patriotism, his great soul, and his high capacity. 
He was astonished, however, that he seemed 
to take no account of the Russian danger for 
Roumania or see that our salvation lay in an 
alliance with Germany, who could protect us. 
I answered Prince von Biilow by repeating to him 
as well as I could all the arguments which Cogal- 
niceano had used so many times to me against 
the policy of an alliance with Austria and Ger- 
many, and this in spite of the genuine admiration 
which he had at that time for Germany. 

After I had repeated these arguments to 
Prince von Biilow he made a statement which I 
now record. 



188 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Amongst other things, Cogalniceano had said 
to me, "This Austro-German policy is perfectly 
absurd, because it is based on the idea of a war 
between Russia and Germany. Now, such a war 
will never take place, it would be too much 
against the traditions of the House of Prussia 
and too much against the interests of Germany." 
In 1888 this reasoning seemed faultless. " He is 
wrong," interrupted Prince von Biilow. " Under 
the last reign M. Cogalniceano would have been 
right, out I am anxious to make you realise that 
the new reign will show a complete change of 
front. It will be one of the cardinal points of 
the policy of the new reign " (William II. had 
been on the throne since June, 1888) " to be on 
guard against Russia. You will soon see that 
our policy will not leave room for doubt as to 
this question." 

Then the talk switched off on to other subjects, 
as invariably happens in the case of conversation 
without any definite objective. 

Later on, when I saw the new Emperor go in 
for a pro-Polish policy, I understood that Prince 
von Biilow had not been mistaken. It did not 
last long, but what could last long in the case of 
an absolute Monarch who was strong enough to 
wish to guide everything and not strong enough 
to be able to do so ? Anyway the fact stands 
that this first talk of mine with Prince von Biilow 
(and I have had many others since then) remains 
deeply engraved in my memory. It explained 
to me many things which have happened during 
the last twenty-eight years. 



PRINCE VON BULOW 189 

Dr. Dillon, that very distinguished writer, has 
lately published in an English review a most 
interesting account of Prince von Billow's intrigues 
for the entanglement of Italy, contrary to the 
dictates of her honour and her national will, in 
the war. 

This article has been republished in the 
Roumanian papers, and has given its readers a 
welcome opportunity of getting a good idea of 
German methods in neutral countries. It is the 
first instance in modern history in which a foreign 
power has mixed itself up in the internal 
affairs of another country on so great a scale ; 
has bought political honour like merchandise 
in the market place, and has framed real plots 
against a foreign state and its sovereign will. 

When one reads it all one shivers at the idea 
of what the fate of Europe, the fate of humanity 
would have been if the Nero of Berlin had been the 
conqueror in this war. Fortunately it is now no 
more than a bad dream. 

One regrets that Prince von Billow ever thought 
it his duty to be mixed up in so unsavoury a 
business. Even patriotism cannot excuse every- 
thing. Civilisation also has its rights, though 
modern Germany repudiates this idea ; for her 
doctrine is that German interests are superior 
to right, honour, decency and humanity. But if 
we held the same ideas on these questions as 
Germany, how could we justify the sacred 
indignation which burns in every breast ? 

Von Bulow deserved a better fate. He had 
shown himself one of the most brilliant men of 



190 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

present-day Germany, and, in spite of his book, 
remained in comparison with his contemporaries 
on a pedestal. 

Prince von Biilow had one great merit in the 
eyes of those who think, for he was the first 
German Minister who dared to put the Kaiser 
in his place. In an autocratic country where 
Parliament is nothing, where the First Minister 
of the Crown is chosen by the Sovereign, and is 
responsible only to the Sovereign and can be 
dismissed by the Sovereign without it being 
possible for the nation — as in the case of Veni- 
zelos — to compel his return ; in a country whose 
political organisation was out of date by several 
centuries, the courage of this act was astonishing. 
Prince von Billow's celebrated speech was received 
with a general paean of admiration. In the 
course of that oration, with masterly skill he 
taunted his Sovereign with useless speechifying, 
and undertook in the presence of a phantom 
parliament that the Monarch should not repeat 
his mistake. It was a first step, a modest step, 
it is true, but the first step towards popular 
government in Germany. This criticism of the 
Emperor in the Reichstag was the dawn of a 
revolution, a revolution designed to save Ger- 
many and the world from the absurd regime which 
could only result in the horrors of the great war. 

And why was the attempt not followed up ? 
Why did it fail ? 

Perhaps Prince von Biilow never formed a clear 
estimate of the enormity of his daring. Who 
knows whether he was not even alarmed by it 



PRINCE VON BULOW 191 

himself ? It is difficult for the soul of the free 
man to emerge from generations who have 
indulged in the fetish worship of monarchy. 

What is certain is that the Kaiser watched 
von Biilow like a cat on the pounce to take his 
revenge. The day the Chancellor committed 
the mistake of making up to our Nero in the 
hope that he would forget this salutary though 
distasteful reprimand, William realised that von 
Biilow was no Cromwell, not even a Bismarck, 
and he decided to make him undergo the fate of 
Seneca, though in a modern fashion. In the 
same Reichstag in which von Biilow had allowed 
himself to speak on one occasion as if to an 
assembly of free men, the Emperor raised against 
him a reactionary intrigue, and he fell. The rest 
of the story is well known. Prince von Billow 
retired with a great deal of dignity and without 
sulking. 

He divided his time between Norderney and 
Rome. From the Eternal City he watched with 
a fine sense of irony the performances of his 
former master, whose inevitable collapse he fore- 
saw might take place any day. 

When the collapse came Nero recalled Seneca 
and demanded of him the supreme sacrifice, 
a harikari, not of his body, but of his reputation 
and of his name in history. 

Prince von Biilow must be congratulated that 
his patriotism got the better of a very proper feel- 
ing of resentment. He was bound to know that 
he was going to certain defeat, and he knew 
Italy too well to deceive himself either as to her 



192 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

intelligence or her sense of honour. For that he 
deserves the commiseration of all mankind. But 
he lost his head. He was not made of fine enough 
stuff for the sacrifice, and he ended by believing 
success to be possible and then stooped to the 
task which Dr. Dillon has described, a task which 
has robbed our modern Seneca of all claim to a 
martyr's halo. 

What a pity for him, and what a triumph for 
Nero ! 



Taticheff 



j.i. 



XXIII 
TATICHEFF 

TATICHEFF is no longer a well-known name 
in the world of European politics, and yet 
he was one of the most genuinely intelli- 
gent people it has ever been my lot to meet. I 
had a talk with him twice, both times in London. 
The first time was at a dinner at the St. James 
Club. Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, then 
foreign editor of the Times, and Lord Reay, a 
former governor of Bombay, a man well known 
in the world of international jurisprudence, were 
also present. 

The second time was at Taticheff's house, and 
I talked for a few minutes to Stead, the well- 
known publicist, who was to lose his life later 
on in the Titanic disaster. At the moment 
Taticheff was the late Witte's agent in England. 
Everyone will remember Witte, the great Finance 
Minister of the Russian Empire, who as an 
adjunct to his dictatorship had financial repre- 
sentatives in all the capitals in Europe, which in 
reality formed a second diplomatic body, con- 
trolled by himself alone. 

Taticheff had a very singular history. He had 
begun life brilliantly in diplomacy. Appointed 

195 



196 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

to the Embassy at Vienna, he began to work 
in an anti-German sense, or to say the least 
of it, not in a pro-German sense. At that time 
it was a most dangerous game to play, and 
Bismarck, who never overlooked anything and 
whose influence in governing circles in Petrograd 
is well known, determined to destroy him. An 
incident in the sentimental side of Taticheff's 
life gave the Iron Chancellor the opportunity 
he sought. The Petrograd Cabinet broke Tati- 
cheff, who at once began to avenge himself after 
the fashion of a strong man. He devoted him- 
self to the study of history, and produced books 
that gave him a great reputation. During the 
war of 1877 he served as a volunteer, and behaved 
in such a way as to win the Cross of St. George. 
Then he went on with his literary career, until 
Witte took him back to the service of the state, 
in the capacity of financial agent. Death over- 
took him before he had attained the summit of 
his powers. 

Like all intelligent Russians, Taticheff was a 
most attractive talker. He had subtlety, im- 
agination, wit and charm, and beyond this a sort 
of courage which enabled him to touch on 
delicate matters with perfect tact. 

Naturally we discussed Russo-Roumanian 
relations. They were in a very bad way. Being 
afraid of Russia, we were plunged into a sea of 
Germanism, and Taticheff was well informed 
on this point. He explained to me the plain 
truth of the matter, which was that the interests 
of Roumanian national unity were absolutely 



TATICHEFF 197 

opposed to a Russophobe policy, and that conse- 
quently we were travelling on a wrong road, since 
any day we might find the interest of self- 
preservation driving us inevitably to reverse our 
existing programme. 

It is easy to imagine Taticheff's line of argu- 
ment; there is no need for me to dwell on it. 
To-day the arguments used by the Russian 
writer are established in the head and heart of 
every Roumanian. 

Taticheff came, of course, to the question of 
Bessarabia. He recognised that the Russian 
Government had been wrong to insist on our 
exchanging the three districts of Bessarabia for 
the Dobrudja. He was of opinion that Russia 
ought merely to have offered us this exchange 
and to have abstained from it if we refused to 
accept it. 

" But," he said, " you would have been very 
wrong to refuse it. I quite understand Rou- 
manian sentiment about Bessarabia, but this senti- 
ment is not bound up only with the three southern 
districts, the least Roumanian of all, but with the 
entire province, the entire territory between the 
Pruth and the Dniester lost in 1812. I under- 
stand this feeling of sad regret and also your 
keen aspirations in the matter. It is too human 
and natural for a friend of truth to be able to 
deny it. But what I do not understand is why 
the preservation of these three districts, separated 
from Russian Bessarabia by the most conventional 
of frontiers, could satisfy the Roumanian instinct 
towards national unity or augment the chances 



198 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

of the future acquisition of the whole of Bessar- 
abia. Danubian Bessarabia, except for the 
district of Cahul, is the least Roumanian corner 
of the Roumanian state, and although the posses- 
sion of Kilia has played a great part in Roumanian 
history we should recognise the fact that 
Moldavian rule has never been more intermittent 
in any other province of the former state of 
Moldavia. To envisage the marshes of southern 
Bessarabia as a strategic point from which to 
advance on the Dniester is simply childish. 
The delta of the Danube is of course very valuable. 
But a Roumania, mistress of the left bank of the 
Kilia branch, with Bulgaria on the opposite side 
of the stream, would have been far less mistress 
of the Danube delta than she would be in the 
situation created by her annexation of the 
Dobrudja. As for access to the sea, one cannot 
compare the two solutions. The Bessarabian 
coast even with the proposed bridge at Jibriani 
would never really have given Roumania proper 
access to the sea, whereas with Sulina, Constantza 
and Mangalia it is quite another matter. And 
it was up to you to add Varna, the best port on 
the Black Sea — Varna, which in 1878 might have 
been anything you liked to make it, except a 
Bulgarian town." 

And as I tried to interrupt him, Taticheff added, 
" I say once more that we were wrong to force 
your hand and you were still more wrong in 
refusing an exchange so favourable to yourself. 
If it had been a question of obtaining possession 
of the whole of Bessarabia I should have under- 



TATICHEFF 199 

stood your policy, but it was not a question of 
that or anything approaching to it. In 1878 
you had a rare opportunity of making capital 
out of your alliance with Russia, especially after 
the glorious days of Plevna. You lost the 
opportunity and what did you gain in exchange ? 
Sooner or later the nemesis of history which has 
placed the greater number of your nationals 
in Austria-Hungary, that is to say among the 
Germans, will oblige you to draw near to us, will 
make you our ally in war, if you do not your- 
selves intend to seal the destruction of your 
race and of your independence. And then," 
said Taticheff, " in spite of these treaties of 
yours, treaties you pretend not to know the 
existence of, but which I know to be real enough, 
I am counting on you as allies when the great 
day of reckoning comes. I cannot admit that 
nations can ever commit suicide. They may 
delude themselves for a time, but they are 
obliged to come back to the truth in the end. I 
hope the great day will find you strong and 
ready." 

Taticheff was right. In the end truth pre- 
vailed. 



France and the Teuton 



XXIV 

FRANCE AND THE TEUTON 

EVERYONE in Roumania knew the late 
Coutouly, formerly French Minister in 
Bucharest, and everyone appreciated his 
gentle character and his real friendliness towards 
our country. 

Gustave de Coutouly had served in the garde 
mobile in 1870 and also had assisted in sup- 
pressing the Commune. It was quite natural 
that he should cherish an unfading memory of 
that dreadful year, and that in his heart there 
should ever burn the passionate feelings of the 
vanquished. 

The last time I saw him in Paris was at the time 
of the Tangier difficulty : it will be remembered 
that the incident which accelerated the first 
Morocco crisis and almost set Europe ablaze 
was the famous landing of the Emperor at Tangier. 
It was like a thunderclap in Paris. People had 
become accustomed to the idea of peace, and it 
was believed that France was safe from any 
new sort of aggression on the part of Germany. 
This thunderclap out of a blue sky was in truth 
the beginning of a new era in the psychology of the 
people of France. 

Some precautions against the possibility of a 

203 



204 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

sudden and absolutely unjustified attack had 
been taken. The eastern garrisons had been 
strengthened and frontier regiments were kept 
always on the alert. 

Monsieur de Coutouly's only son was serving 
in one of these regiments. He was killed in the 
war, fighting gallantly, two days after his 
marriage. 

I was discussing the gravity of the time with 
my friend de Coutouly, when he began to read 
me a letter which his son had sent from the 
frontier. The young soldier expressed himself 
in this letter with the magnificent courage, the 
gaiety, the humour which is characteristic of 
the Frenchman. He told his father he had 
nothing to fear, that the new generation, in spite 
of its apparent softness and indifference, would do 
its duty as Frenchmen, would prove worthy of 
their ancestors, and that if war broke out the 
heroes who were the glory of French history 
would have reason to be proud of the exploits 
of the French of to-day. " But," he added, " it is 
impossible for us to hate. You who were beaten 
in 1870 cherish a natural and legitimate hatred 
for Germany, and you must not mind if we do not 
share it. France has after all fought in turns 
with so many nations. She has been beaten and 
she has been victorious. Must we hate the 
English because of Waterloo, when we have a 
Crimea in common ? Undoubtedly Alsace and 
Lorraine are very dear to us and we will shed our 
blood willingly to get them back, but hate the 
Germans because of Sedan we can't." 



FRANCE AND THE TEUTON 205 

Together my friend and I plumbed the depths 
of the Latin soul, which is just and generous 
even to the enemy who had injured us. 

" The new generation," said my friend, " will 
astonish you by its heroism and it will be all the 
more beautiful because hatred has no place in 
its heart." 

And as the soul of the conquered was purged 
of all evil passions, the victor's hatred of France 
and the French increased daily, for in Germany 
they resented the fact that France had not died 
after 1870. They regretted not having bled 
her white, not having seized more territory and 
more money, and they watched for the moment 
when they could once more hurl themselves upon 
her, this time to destroy her for ever. 

When war broke out, a great friend of mine, 
Titulesco, was in Stockholm. In order to get 
home he had to go through Berlin, and he stopped 
there ten days or more. From Berlin he wrote 
me a letter, which I have kept, as it does great 
honour to Titulesco's spirit of observation and the 
depth of his judgment. He showed himself 
dumbfounded by what he saw, but the number 
of guns and the wonderful organisation of material 
was not what interested him ; the important factor 
to him was the German soul. That soul 
astonished and appalled him at the same time. 
He witnessed its manifestations. He saw the 
happy expression with which parents and friends 
read the names of their dearest in the lists of 
killed, and he wrote : " It is perfectly clear to me 
that these people have been waiting for forty 



206 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

years with intense impatience for this day. To 
this people the war has brought positive happiness ; 
this people desired war with all its strength, 
they look upon it as Christians look upon the 
advent of the Messiah, and in the joy of striking 
France even natural feelings disappear." 

I pondered over the two mentalities, the sons 
of the conquered Latins who are unable to hate 
their conquerors, and the sons of the German 
conquerors who could not forego their hatred 
of their former victims. 



II 

Yesterday evening in my little country library 
I took down UAnnee Terrible from the poet's 
shelf. I had not read it for a long while. The 
great poet, the greatest lyric poet of modern 
times, speaks of the choice between the two 
nations. 

He begins with Germany, to whom he devotes 
three pages, opening with this verse : 

" Aucune nation n'est plus grande que toi," 

and which ends : 

" L'Allemagne est puissante et superbe," 

and for France he adds only three words : 
" O ma mere ! " 

It was in September, 1870, that Victor Hugo 
wrote like this, the September in which Germany, 
having finished her war with the Austrian Empire, 
began her war against France. 



FRANCE AND THE TEUTON 207 

How can Germans ever understand the French 
soul ? 

How can they fail to be mistaken as to the 
power and decision of France ? 



A Cousin of Tisza 



j.i. 



XXV 

A COUSIN OF TISZA 

I WAS talking in Vienna on the evening of the 
30th of July, 1914, to a friend — an intimate 
of Count Berchtold's. This friend happened 
to be an Englishman who did not believe that 
England would fight. 

" They are keenly anxious for war here," he 
said, " and to this end they drafted the ulti- 
matum to Serbia in such a way that it could not 
possibly be accepted. They were greatly dis- 
appointed when the report— which, by the way, 
turned out to be false — got about that the Serbs 
had accepted it without modification, for they 
are so well prepared as to be confident of victory. 
The present Roumanian Government does not 
count for much here, as it does not appear fully 
to realise the situation. They tell me if only 
you were in power a good deal could be done with 
Roumania. Not only could the whole of Bess- 
arabia lost in 1812 be regained, but Odessa also, 
and . . ." 

I listened to my friend's words : he was quite 
an intelligent person, and I said to myself, " People 
in Vienna are up to the neck in ignorance and 
folly." 

211 



212 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

II 

On the morning of the 3rd of August, 1914, 
I called a party meeting at my house at Sinaia. 
It was attended by MM. Dissesco, Istrati, Canta- 
cuzene-Pashcano, Badarau and Cineo. 

To them I explained the situation and the 
matters to be discussed and settled at the Privy 
Council that afternoon. 

I asked each person for his opinion before 
giving my own. Then I put forward my own 
views, and added that I was happy to think 
nearly all were of the same opinion as I was as 
to the effect on our country of a German victory. 
It would be the death of Roumania, and it was 
morally impossible that we should assist at our 
own funeral. 

I said that if they had not been of my opinion 
I should have retired from the leadership of the 
Conservative Democratic Party. And even then 
I should not have lost faith in my country's 
destiny, but should have worked on as a private 
individual in complete freedom and with re- 
doubled energy. 

Ill 

I was still at my little villa at Sinaia in Sep- 
tember, 1914, just before the fall of Lemberg, 
when a Hungarian friend, a cousin of Count 
Tisza, came to see me. He was a charming man, 
and as a rule did not mix himself up in politics. 

He spoke of my own attitude in the great Euro- 



A COUSIN OF TISZA 213 

pean crisis, an attitude which, he said, might prove 
fatal to me. He gave me to understand what I 
already knew well, that Tisza was the real pilot 
of the Dual Empire, and that after the Peace he 
intended to become Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
a post he could keep for life, if it pleased him to 
do so. With the utmost civility he pointed out 
to me the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of 
my ever coming back to power in Roumania, 
as I could never have any decent relations with 
Count Tisza's Government because of the attitude 
I was taking up. He insinuated that there was 
still time for me to retreat, and that the Central 
Powers were confident of victory. 

I told him that every man was bound to obey 
the call of duty without heeding risk or danger, 
and that I was quite well aware that in the event 
of the Germans being victorious it would be my 
patriotic duty not to embarrass the policy of 
my country by remaining in public life, and that 
when countless human lives were being sacrificed 
on countless battlefields it was ridiculous to stop 
at the sacrifice of a man's political career, no 
matter who the man was. 

My visitor took the hint, and by way of excus- 
ing himself, assured me that his advice had been 
inspired only by his feelings of friendship. It 
is, however, the same ad\ice which, since then, 
has been offered me on several occasions, and 
by quite different people. 



New Italy 



XXVI 

NEW ITALY 

A FORTNIGHT before the outbreak of the 
Russo-Japanese war I was discussing the 
chances of peace with King Charles, who 
was not only a statesman but a great soldier. 
Both of us thought war certain, in spite of the 
peaceful assurances of the Embassies. I told him 
of my profound conviction that the Japanese 
would be victorious all along the line. He 
answered me with the usual objections, saying 
that there would be ninety Russian divisions 
against thirteen Japanese divisions, and so on. 

When we had finished arguing he asked me 
on what I based my conviction. " I believe," 
I said, " in the moral factor. History teaches 
that it is this moral factor rather than the mere 
number of battalions which gives victory. For 
the Russians this war is an absurd colonial 
affair, which they do not understand, but for the 
Japanese victory is a vital necessity. They 
know quite well that until they have beaten a 
white race they will continue to be despised. 

" Now for the Japanese honour is the supreme 
good, and it is necessary for them to win in order 
to make themselves our equal." 

217 



218 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

My questioner persisted in his view. " Look 
here," I said, " you have often told me that the 
Austrian army was first rate, that its infantry 
was better than the German infantry, and that 
the higher command, since they had admitted 
to it people who were not noble by birth, had 
made astonishing progress ; well, I am perfectly 
certain that, given equal numbers or thereabouts, 
the Austrian army could be beaten by any other 
army in the world. It has not, and never can 
have, the moral factor." He appeared to find 
me rather ridiculous, and so I added, " I know 
that you have a pretty moderate opinion of the 
Italian army, but I am quite certain that, given 
equal numbers, the Italian army could beat the 
Austrian army into a cocked hat." 

After a few other remarks I added, " You do 
not know new Italy ; our misfortune is that we 
preserve the opinions of our first youth and we 
do not adapt ourselves quickly enough to the 
new facts round us. Italy, for example, is pass- 
ing through a moral revolution of which people 
in general have no idea. The new generation 
which has grown up in a free Italy is filled with 
patriotism, I might say pride, which the extreme 
politeness of Italians does not make apparent. 
Italy will no longer stand taking the part of 
Cinderella among the Great Powers. A working 
democracy like Italy will never trouble the peace 
of the world, but if it is forced to go to war it will 
astonish everyone by the decision of its action 
and by its heroism." 

I realised that I had not convinced King 



NEW ITALY 219 

Charles as to the certainty of a Japanese victory, 
nor as to the superiority of the Italian army 
over the Austrian army. Perhaps he realised 
later that I had observed and understood cor- 
rectly. 

Now that the Italians have astonished the 
world by the valour of their troops, I call to 
mind this conversation which took place in 1904, 
and I feel very pleased with myself at having 
foreseen that which all the world now realises. 

In the month of August, 1901, 1 climbed Mount 
Tabor, which is celebrated for the fine panorama 
one sees from the summit. The ascent is easy, 
but as it is a question of climbing 10,000 feet it 
is a lengthy and fatiguing business. I chatted 
with my guide, a good chamois hunter, and 
pointing out to him a steep precipice, which 
appeared to me quite unclimbable, I asked him 
if it were possible to get up it. He answered it 
was very difficult, and he advised me not to try, 
and then added, " A month ago some Italian 
Alpini were here. The commandant of the 
battalion was a little fat man, who was not much 
to look at. He asked me to help him get up the 
precipice which you are now pointing out to me. 
I told him that only chamois could pass that 
way. He answered, ' Take me all the same ; 
where the chamois can go man can go, and where 
men can go my battalion can go.' I obeyed 
him, and the battalion went that way just as the 
commandant had said." 

The Italian Alpini have since won for them- 
selves immortal fame. 



My Four Last Germans 



XXVII 
MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 

BEFORE the world war I knew plenty of 
Germans; I even counted some of them 
among my friends. In August, 1914, my 
relations with Austrians and Germans became 
cooler and cooler, and some weeks later they 
almost ceased to exist. Later on, however, cir- 
cumstances resulted in my meeting at least four 
Germans, and I am going to record the impres- 
sions they made on me. 



One is of a conversation with Herr von Busche, 
the German Minister to Roumania. 

Herr von Busche belongs to the new diplomacy. 
He is a man of education and brains, but abso- 
lutely without personality. His darling ambition 
— and the one he will never realise — is to be taken 
for a grand seigneur. I have only had one 
conversation with him, and I recognised him at 
once as base metal. Herr von Busche is like 
a piece of cheap furniture — on the surface a 
thin veneer of oak or walnut, but the substance 
is common deal. 

Herr von Busche was sent to Roumania just 

223 



224 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

after the beginning of the war, when Berlin had 
made the discovery that its Minister at Bucharest, 
quite an excellent man and one of prodigious 
wealth, was altogether inadequate. He had 
hardly arrived at Sinaia when, before being 
presented either to the Premier or the Foreign 
Minister, he had a secret interview with King 
Charles. Thanks to a private police of my own, 
which has always done me good service, prob- 
ably because I have never paid for it, I knew 
of this visit the same day. After his visit to 
the King, Herr von Busche proceeded to Buchar- 
est to introduce himself officially to the Govern- 
ment. Returning to Sinaia, he sent his Coun- 
cillor of Legation to ask for an appointment with 
me, which I fixed for the same day (this, as 
I say, was at the beginning of the war), and 
I waited for him in my drawing-room, where 
there happened to be a portrait of Kiderlen- 
Waechter with a very cordial inscription. At 
exactly six o'clock Herr von Busche came in, 
buttoned tightly up in a frock coat which was 
plainly intended to suggest London, but as 
evidently hailed from Berlin — one of those almost 
invisible distinctions which make a world of 
difference. 

Herr Busche, who had been apprised how 
completely I was convinced of Germany's 
criminal culpability, affected to know nothing 
of this, and began by informing me that he could 
claim a double introduction to me : one was 
from Prince Biilow, who had begged him to give 
me his most friendly remembrances ; the other 



MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 225 

was the memory of the late Kiderlen-Waechter, 
whose pupil he had been in diplomacy. I 
replied that Prince Btilow had often shown me 
his friendly feelings, and that to know the terms 
on which I had been with Kiderlen he had only 
to look at his photograph — " the photograph," 
I added, " of a man who would never have allowed 
himself to be associated with Germany's recent 
actions." 

Having come expressly to plead Germany's 
innocence, Herr von Busche endeavoured to con- 
vince me that Kiderlen's successors had been as 
much in favour of peace as himself, and that 
Germany was fighting a defensive war. I opposed 
this view energetically, and in the course of our 
conversation I made Herr von Busche under- 
stand that I was well acquainted with what had 
happened at Berlin, since I knew the circum- 
stances under which Kiderlen-Waechter had 
become Foreign Minister, and in particular I 
referred to the famous memorandum on the world 
situation which he had presented to Bethmann- 
Hollweg. after reading which the Chancellor 
had told the Emperor that he would not consent 
to stay in office unless Kiderlen had charge of 
foreign affairs. Herr von Busche showed con- 
siderable astonishment at my knowledge of so 
intimate an incident of German diplomacy, and 
he took the trouble to let me know that he had 
made the copy of Kiderlen-Waechter's memoran- 
dum with his own hand. 

" Well," I said, " you see I know more than 

you expected of your country's policy," and I 
j.i. p 



226 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

related to him how Kiderlen had failed to obtain 
the Emperor's consent to the limitation of 
naval armaments, which would have secured 
peace, because von Tirpitz had opposed it. I 
added that Kiderlen had made no secret of his 
absolute conviction that France would never 
provoke war. " Any attempt," I added, " on 
your part to argue that France is morally the 
author of this catastrophe is, so far as I am 
concerned, pure waste of energy." 

Von Busche accordingly shifted the ground 
from France and fell back upon England, 
repeating like a gramophone all the German 
absurdities about England's bellicose intentions 
and intrigues. I cut short this piece of mala- 
droit special pleading by a simple statement 
which completely upset my visitor. " You are 
giving yourself perfectly useless trouble," I told 
him. " I know England too well for that. It is 
Hungary and Germany who have started uni- 
versal war." And I argued this so vigorously 
that von Busche persisted no further and changed 
the subject. But before doing so he was at 
pains to repeat once again that Germany was 
waging a defensive war, and that the German 
people were convinced of it. 

" There you are right," I replied. " What 
astonishes me most in your country is neither 
its military power, formidable as it is, nor its 
remarkable organisation, but your success in 
having so disciplined your people that you can 
control their convictions, as if by police regulation, , 
however contrary they are to the facts. This 



MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 227 

is indeed a unique and unprecedented achieve- 
ment." 

From this stage the conversation began to 
languish. The German Minister was obviously 
looking for an opportunity to escape, but the 
Councillor of Legation, for whom he was waiting, 
had not yet arrived. When at length he came in 
Herr von Busche — the base metal again revealing 
itself — felt it necessary to excuse himself for 
leaving so soon. "But," he said, "I have an 
audience with the King at a quarter past seven." 

"I congratulate you," I said, "on seeing His 
Majesty twice in three days. It is a good augury 
for your mission." Von Busche turned pale and 
said that he did not understand me, as in a 
few minutes he was going to see the King for the 
first time. He added that it would have been 
impossible for him to see the King before he had 
been officially presented to his Ministers. 

" Oh," said I, " in that case it is, of course, 
my mistake." And these were the last words 
exchanged between Germany's last Minister to 
Roumania and myself. 

This attempt, doomed in advance to failure, 
to prove that the author of the world war was 
England, and the lie with regard to his having 
met the King may be fairly regarded as an 
epitome of the whole German diplomatic method. 

II 

A few days after the battle of the Marne I 
was on my way from my villa at Sinaia to the 



228 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Palace Hotel when a motor car stopped in front 
of me. A man, smothered in dust, got out of 
it and addressed me. As he said he had come 
from Berlin on behalf of Herr Zimmermann 
solely in order to speak to me, I arranged to 
see him at once. In my house a few minutes 
later he withdrew this, and explained that 
Zimmermann had not really sent him. 

My visitor from Berlin was, in fact, a German 
engineer who had lived many years in Roumania, 
married a Roumanian lady, been appointed a 
teacher in one of our higher-grade schools, and, 
in fact, had become so completely one of ourselves 
that I firmly believed he had been naturalised 
as a Roumanian. At the outbreak of war Mr. 
S. happened to be in Berlin, and before Roumania 
had definitely declined to enter the war at the 
side of Germany, he had made it his business 
to assist in inducing her to do so. With this 
object he used to send us from Berlin immense 
telegrams, sometimes two or three a day, con- 
taining remarkably biassed information on the 
progress of the war, evidently designed to work 
upon our fears. This reckless outlay made it 
clear to me that Mr. S. was doing his work at 
Germany's expense, which, on the part of a 
naturalised Roumanian, made me very angry. 
Immediately on meeting him I had reproached 
him vehemently for thus allowing himself to 
forget that he had become a Roumanian citizen, 
and my indignation fairly carried me away. 
Its object excused himself to me on the ground 
that he had not, in fact, ever been naturalised, 



MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 229 

but the violence with which I had spoken to 
him had made its impression, and when he 
came to my house all his earlier audacity had 
disappeared. 

Mr. S.'s proposal was really paralysing. He 
began by admitting that my attitude towards 
Germany was quite naturally explained by my 
affection for France; "but," he added, 'we 
Germans are also very fond of France and have no 
complaint to make of her. On the contrary, 
the idea of being at war with France is exceed- 
ingly painful to us. These being Germany's 
feelings for France, I have come to you, for I 
have long considered you as one of the clearest- 
sighted men in Europe— an opinion which is 
also shared by the political world of Berlin— 
to give you the opportunity of rendering, to 
Roumania, France and humanity alike, a service 
which will ensure your name being for ever 
enshrined in history. 

"Go to Paris, where everyone — very rightly 
—trusts you. Propose to France a separate 
peace. We will offer her terms of peace, magnifi- 
cent terms, beyond her utmost hopes : and, 
after that, we will punish, as they deserve, the 
Russians, and above all the English, the real 
criminals who have provoked the war and are 
responsible for this catastrophe. You have more 
chance than anyone else in the world of being 
listened to." 

I answered my German as any other man in 
my place must have answered : I told him that 
he had no shred of reason to believe it possible 



230 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

that I could listen to such a suggestion. What 
he was proposing to me was an infamy of which 
he should have known I was incapable. If 
France ever wished to be guilty of such abomin- 
able treachery she would not require any inter- 
vention on my part, and to suppose anything 
else was not only to lose all sense of proportion, 
but to be quite abnormally stupid. I then 
dismissed S. as he deserved, but not without 
first telling him how little I thought of Germany 
for her ignorance of the spirit of France and of 
her other adversaries. 

That Berlin should have thought me so foolish 
as to suppose myself able to play such a part, and 
base enough to wish to play it, is nothing : it 
is merely a mistaken estimate of an individual. 
But that Berlin could imagine that France would 
betray England, who had come to her help 
without any obligation, made it perfectly clear 
to me that people at Berlin had completely 
lost, not only all sense of right, but what is 
sometimes more dangerous, all intelligence as 
well. 

I have not seen Mr. S. again. 

Ill 

In November, 1914, at Bucharest, I received 
the last visit of a German friend with whom my 
relations had been very close. 

Mr. X. is a man of business ; he is also a man 
of ability, one of those singularly clear intellects 
which impress one from the first and in the 



MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 231 

presence of which one feels that here is an in- 
dividual who would have been a success at any 
period, in any country and in any career. Mr. X. 
is also one of the most international of Germans ; 
his mother was a Russian, his wife is English, 
he has one sister married in Russia and another 
in the United States. He has passed a great part 
of his life in Russia, in England and in Roumania. 
With all this he is highly educated, astute and 
witty. I dwell on this, because in November, 
1914, X. gave me an unexpected opportunity of 
seeing how the German war could pervert even 
so cultivated an intelligence as his. When I 
record what X. said to me my astonishment 
will be intelligible. It will be understood also, 
why, when after three hours' conversation he 
left me, I said to some friends who were waiting 
for me to dine with them, " I have just been 
spending three hours in a lunatic asylum." 

X. had always been genuinely well-disposed 
to me, and had come in reality to see whether 
he could do nothing to make me less Germano- 
phobe. Too well brought up to reveal his plans 
openly, he began by offering me Herr von Busche's 
excuses for no longer visiting me. " If it was 
only Germany you attacked," he said, "it 
would always be a pleasure to Herr Busche to 
call upon you, but you attack the Kaiser, and that 
he cannot overlook." 

I replied that Herr von Busche was perfectly 
right not to call on me, because in no case should 
I return his visit. I added that if ever Herr von 
Busche met me I begged that he would not bow 



232 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

his salutation to me, since I had quite made up 
my mind not to return it. 

In terms most nicely calculated not to offend 
me, X. then said how profoundly he regretted, not 
only on my account but on that of Roumania, 
to see me afloat in a vessel which was bound to 
founder, and very delicately he alluded to certain 
strokes of the oar which, taken at the right mo- 
ment, might effect a complete change of course. 
As I did not wish to bandy words with him, I 
pretended not to understand, and replied that I 
had not, indeed, any boat beneath me, but that I 
was a lonely swimmer in an ocean full of danger, 
obeying simply the imperative behests of my 
conscience, and without ever asking myself 
whether or not I had any prospect of reaching 
land. And as X. insisted on Roumania's mis- 
fortune in losing the only politician who, accord- 
ing to him, was of real worth, I cut him short 
with the words, which I have so often repeated, 
" How can one concern one's self with the situa- 
tion of an individual when the fate of the world 
is at stake ? " Accordingly X.> abandoning all 
hope of convincing me, left the personal question 
and began a monologue, like a man thinking 
aloud. For more than two hours he explained 
to me why Germany must be victorious, why it 
was impossible that she should be otherwise, 
and why all those who placed themselves across 
the German path would be crushed to the earth 
without any advantage to themselves or to the 
cause which they wished to serve. According 
to him, Germany was at least half a century in 



MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 233 

advance of the rest of the world, because she 
understood what organisation meant, while all 
other countries were still relying on the futilities 
of individual initiative. " For that reason more 
than any other," he said, " Germany's victory, 
which is just as much beyond dispute as the 
sun in the sky, will be an advantage to the whole 
human race, since even the nations she conquers 
will feel the benefit of her supremacy. 

" Of all our enemies France is the only one 
with whom we need reckon. Her soldiers, her 
officers, her General Staff, are just as good as ours, 
but thirty-eight millions of men can do nothing 
against seventy millions. France will be ground 
to powder, and we Germans shall regret it. 

44 Russia gives us no anxiety. Numbers are 
not the main factor in war. Russia, believe me, 
will go from collapse to collapse. Each time 
that you fancy that Russia is on the point of an 
achievement you will have a repetition of the 
Mazurian lakes. Thanks to Russia's disorder, 
Russia's indifference, her absolute lack of organ- 
isation and her fundamental inability to create it, 
the famous steam-roller is a perilous illusion. 
Believe me, the Russians will be beaten at just 
that moment when their allies will have special 
need of them, and they will be first to quit the 
field. 

44 There remains England. Obviously she 
might have been formidable. If England had 
begun to arm herself ten years ago we should 
never have dared to venture on war. But 
England wishes to do in a few months what has 



234 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

taken Russia a hundred years. That is asking 
too much of human capacity, and it will never 
come to pass. You will see what the course of 
events will be. The war will last a few months 
more, at the very most a year. Then the Kaiser, 
at the head of his troops, will enter Paris, Moscow 
and London." I smiled at this, and X. replied : 
" Yes, London. It is there, at Westminster, 
that the Emperor will dictate the world's peace 
and the reorganisation of the human race." 

Nothing was further from X.'s mind than 
bluff. He was profoundly convinced of his own 
prophecy, which, indeed, in his view, amounted 
to evidence. Yet I repeat that X. is a man of 
education and brains, who has travelled, who is 
at home all the world over, and having lived all 
his life among foreigners might well have a 
more open mind. 

He gave me the solution himself when he said 
that since the war no peasant among his country- 
men could feel himself more of the German 
Michael 1 than he did. 

IV 

In the Spring of 1915 a friend came to tell me 
that a German diplomatist with whom I had been 
very friendly, but to whom I had not bowed for 
some months, was begging to meet me at any 
cost. It was suggested to me that we should 
come across each other, as if by chance, at my 
friend's house. After much persuasion I agreed, 
on the express condition that no word of politics 

1 The German equivalent of " John Bull." 



MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 235 

should be mentioned. I knew perfectly well 
that the German in question would not respect 
this undertaking, but the agreement to exclude 
politics was indispensable if I were to be able, 
without rudeness, to bring our conversation to an 
end at the moment of my choice. 

Next afternoon, at half-past five, I was duly 
calling on my friend when the German diplo- 
matist came in. He told me that he realised that 
Roumania would soon be at war with Germany, 
that consequently he would have to leave Buchar- 
est, and that he had come to beg me, when the 
occasion arose, to take charge of the keys of his 
flat, feeling sure that he could count upon me 
to see that his property was respected. It is 
quite needless to say that he had no intention of 
doing anything of the kind, and that when 
Roumania declared war on Germany in August, 
1916, he never even thought of it. It is, however, 
a pleasure to me to recall that a German diplomat 
reckoned on me for the preservation of his house 
and furniture, when I remember that in December, 
1916, when the German armies occupied Buchar- 
est, Field Marshal von Mackensen not only gave 
orders for my house to be sacked, with the most 
complete and what I may be forgiven for calling 
the most Hunnish particularity, but came in 
person a few days afterwards, accompanied by 
his Staff, to admire the way in which his instruc- 
tions had been carried out. There are things that 
the Germans do differently from other people. 

My German diplomatist asked me with irresis- 
tible frankness on what my conviction that 



236 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Germany would be defeated was based. I 
answered him without any reserve. I explained 
to him my reasons, which were those of ordinary 
common sense, and we passed, step by step, from 
one point to another, until at length he reached 
that of making the following remarkable admis- 
sion : " All you say is perfectly true. The 
militarism of Prussia, the martinet spirit of 
Prussia, is the most abominable thing on the face 
of the earth. But it happens to be invincible. 
And there is nothing for us — for any of us — 
to do but bow before it as to fate." 

My only reply was to tell my German diplo- 
matist, who happened to be a Saxon by birth, 
that I would see him again at the end of the war. 



Eleutberios Venizelos 



XXVIII 
ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 



ALL greatness is rare, and human greatness 
is the rarest of all. By human greatness 
I mean an harmonious personality made 
up of high intelligence, moral beauty and inflexi- 
bility of will. Great minds are not so scarce as 
men think ; moral beauty is fortunately fairly 
common, especially amongst humble folk. Tenacity 
of will is often combined with moral perversity. 
But the combination of these qualities in a 
whole, which, according to my own idea, alone 
constitutes true human greatness, is so rare that 
one may go through life without meeting it. 

Venizelos x is a true example of human greatness, 
and of a greatness such that one may unre- 
servedly admire it. It should not be forgotten 
that in sincere profound admiration we may 
find one of those rare springs of joy which from 
time to time illusion us as to the value of life. 

Shakespeare, the greatest poet humanity has 
ever produced, presents this remarkable and 

This appreciation was written in 1915, before M. Venizelos' recall 
to power. 

239 



240 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

almost singular characteristic — that we know 
nothing of his life. Venizelos is rather like him. 
Until recent years his life was so devoid of inci- 
dent that it leaves a vast field to be occupied by 
legend. The only thing known about his early 
career is the time he spent in the mountains 
with other Cretans fighting for his country's 
independence. This was a moral education. 
People do not know, however, that this Cretan 
carried books about with him in the bush, in order 
to perfect himself in the study of French. 

II 

Before the time of Venizelos, Greece had 
fallen low, as we know only too well. If she had 
not since then risen again so marvellously, I, 
who owe an eternal debt to the Hellenic people, 
should not dare to speak of their past. During 
the war of independence Greece had accom- 
plished marvels of heroism and moral beauty, 
which in the end drew to it the protection of the 
three Great Powers, France, England and Russia 
— the three Powers that are always associated in 
history with noble action, whether they act inde- 
pendently or together. But this same Greece 
had started down a real incline almost immedi- 
ately after her emancipation. She made an 
unhappy choice in her first king. How could any 
rigid Bavarian understand the Greek soul ? Her 
second king made a rule of leaving the Greeks 
entirely free, he did not so much as guide them 
through difficult moments, and there resulted 



ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 241 

a period of unchecked quarrelling between politi- 
cal parties, the system of dividing the spoil 
pushed to its utmost limits, and in spite of the 
efforts of another great man, Tricoupis, the Greek 
people, one of the most gifted on the earth, 
knew all the misery of defeat and bankruptcy. 

As ever, the nation was saved on the edge of 
the abyss by the only means of salvation that 
history knows — revolution. And by the most 
dangerous form of revolution, that known as the 
military coup oVetat. King George, who had done 
nothing to deserve it, drank the full cup of 
humiliation to the dregs. With his own hand he 
signed the order cashiering his own sons from the 
army, including the Crown Prince, whose name 
was for the Greeks for ever associated with their 
defeat at Domokos in 1897. Whatever his 
faults may have been, a martyrdom like his 
should have expiated them. After having de- 
stroyed, it was necessary to rebuild. But military 
revolution, unless it throws up a Napoleon, 
though very effective in clearing the ground, 
finds reconstruction beyond its powers. 

Greece was in a state of absolute chaos. The 
new Chamber not only wanted to set about 
revising the fundamental laws of the state, but 
it also wanted to proclaim its own supremacy, 
though the exercise of such supremacy was 
something quite beyond its powers, as they had 
then developed. 

It was at this moment that the Cretan 
arrived. 

He came alone ; without clansmen, or family 

J.I. Q 



242 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

or fortune ; without past or party or supporters. 
He stood, as, I say, alone. 

He was received like a god — crowds are occa- 
sionally endowed with divine intuition of this 
kind. Received as a god, he acted from the 
first moment as a man. 

There are few finer pages in history than the 
account of how the Cretan faced the people of 
Athens. They were shouting with all their 
might, "Long live Venizelos! Long live the 
Constitutional Assembly ! " and he forced upon 
them the alternative cry, " Long live the revision 
of the Constitution." 

This man was right when the world was wrong. 
Like all creators, he began by smashing everything. 
He crushed the parties, or rather the old cliques 
which had brought Greece to destruction. He 
made another nation. Amongst an excitable 
people he dared to insist on the permanent 
status of the civil servant, his selection by com- 
petitive examination, and his promotion on the 
recommendation of his colleagues. 

He cleaned the stable out better even than the 
Hercules of legend. An astonished Europe could 
indulge itself in the spectacle of a great man come 
to light. 

Ill 

After having remade Greece himself, he turned 
to the fate of Hellenism in the world at large. 

During the whole Balkan crisis — and one can 
say this quite truthfully — it was Greece that, 
thanks to the genius of Venizelos, with the 



ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 243 

smallest army of all at her disposal, controlled 
events. 

With the insight of a great man, Venizelos 
realised the true value of Serbia. He attached 
Serbia to Greece, and at all times and in all 
circumstances dominated M. Pasitch by the power 
of his personal attraction. When it was found 
impossible to arrive at an understanding with 
Turkey on the subject of Crete, owing to the 
hopeless incapacity of the Turks, Venizelos ac- 
complished the miracle of concluding an alliance 
with the Bulgarians, a race that the Greek people 
traditionally regarded in the light of an heredi- 
tary and uncompromising enemy. In concluding 
this alliance he saw clearly how necessary it was 
to keep out of the treaty all reference to the 
division of territories that might be conquered 
in the future. King George and the Crown Prince 
(afterwards King Constantine) opposed Veni- 
zelos bitterly, but the Cretan once more gained 
his point, and the treaty was silent as to the 
division of the spoils. Because of his prevision, 
Greece escaped the imputations and difficulties 
in which Serbia is still involved. 

In London Venizelos imposed his personality 
on all political and diplomatic circles, and this 
in spite of his reserve and modesty, which was such 
a contrast to the foolish arrogance of Daneff. 

It was just at that time that I had the happiness 
of getting to know him, and of forming one of 
those friendships, based on confidence and sym- 
pathy, which death alone can break. 

I only saw Venizelos twice at that time, but it 






244 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

sufficed for me to know that I had before me 
not only a great man but a gentleman, a man 
in whom one might repose unlimited confidence 
without running the risk of being deceived. I 
knew he was in profound disagreement with the 
Bulgarians at the Balkan Conference which was 
then sitting, but he had too much delicacy to 
say a word to me about difficulties between 
him and his allies. 

The first time I saw him I asked him the secret 
of his extraordinary success. He replied that 
he had arrived at the right moment, and that he 
had adopted two rules of conduct : to tell his 
people the whole truth in all circumstances and 
to be ready to leave office at any moment without 
regret. 

I had a very animated conversation with him 
at Bucharest. He became very angry when I 
told him it was a mistake to insist upon getting 
Kavalla. 

From his anger I could see — what later on I 
found to be true — -that he was not the only 
director of his country's policy. At the time 
I was dreaming of completing the Treaty of 
Bucharest by a treaty of alliance between the 
four kingdoms of Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and 
Roumania. 

When all the secrets of the Balkan crisis are 
revealed, when men know all that Venizelos 
did, our admiration for him as a great man will 
be enhanced. Here, at least, we have an indi- 
vidual who need not fear that all his actions and 
even his secret thoughts should be revealed. 



ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 245 

After the Treaty of Bucharest, Venizelos found 
he had to fight Austrian intrigues at Constanti- 
nople. I do not want to tell the history of the 
Treaty of Athens now nor to insist on the fact 
that on several occasions a new war between 
Turkey and Greece was on the point of breaking 
out and that Venizelos was prepared for all 
eventualities. All I want to do at the moment 
is to render public homage to the moral beauty 
of Venizelos, who, far from wishing to ignore the 
services I was able at that time to do Greece and 
the cause of peace, insisted on giving them the 
widest publicity. 

At the end of October, 1913, he wrote me a 
letter of generous appreciation, in which he said : 
" Our recent friendship has been rich in practical 
results for my country, and I rejoice that Rou- 
mania has again so well played the part of arbiter 
in the conclusion of peace in the Balkans. It is 
a new bond between our two nations ; we who are 
already bound by the same interests are destined 
to advance together on the path of civilisation." 
Magnanimity is always the mark of greatness. 

Venizelos had the question of Epirus on his 
hands at the time. He knew quite wall that it 
was impossible for Greece to oppose the unani- 
mous wish of the Great Powers, and that it would 
be unworthy of him to be the cause of a general 
war. He sacrificed himself to his duty, knowing 
well that the day would come when he would be 
able to obtain Epirus without provoking Europe. 
But in making good this policy he spent himself, 
just as he spent himself at Bucharest when he 



246 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

failed in obtaining for the Greeks the sun, the 
moon and the constellations. His actions were 
closely watched at Athens. Every concession 
this great man made to the peace of Europe and 
the security of his country was made the occa- 
sion of attacking him as a coward soul who, 
having no faith in the force of Hellenism, did 
not dare show himself implacable. 

Nothing is easier than to obtain vulgar popu- 
larity by siding with those who shout loudest at 
a time when, at the risk of unpopularity, another 
man takes upon himself to defend his country. 

It is to this incident that Venizelos owes the 
enmity of M. Zographos, just as later on, as a 
reward for his efforts over the Islands, he had to 
submit to all the epithets coined by the envious 
and the disappointed. 

IV 

Everyone who has studied history sufficiently 
to know that great men are sometimes rather 
a burden on their country, will understand that 
Venizelos could not remain long in power. 

After the Treaty of Bucharest had been signed 
M. Pasitch invited us all to luncheon at the 
Palace Hotel. Speaking to my right-hand neigh- 
bour, I told him of a wish I had cherished for 
many years of visiting Japan in the summer of 
1914. Venizelos heard me, and asked me if I 
would take him as a travelling companion. 
Then he went on to ask with a smile whether I 
was sure I should be free in the first half of the 
year 1914. He was alluding to the opinion 



ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 247 

generally held that the men who had accom- 
plished the work of 1913 would be retained in 
office by their peoples. I told him, and the other 
guests were greatly surprised at it, that I was 
sure of this freedom, not only for myself, but 
also for him. As far as Venizelos was concerned, 
I was wrong by a year. But without the Island 
question and the surprise of the European war, 
he would have been out of office at the period 
I predicted. His greatness offended people in a 
way one could hardly imagine. The man who 
created modern Greece had at all costs to dis- 
appear from the scene in order that certain 
personages might emerge from their obscurity. 
I felt it first in July, 1913, and I became firmly 
convinced of it in the months that followed. 

When European war broke out I had no doubts 
as to Venizelos' thoughts. I knew that he 
wanted a serious and lasting alliance amongst the 
little nations, and I could not believe that such 
a genius would not realise that the independence, 
the liberty, the very existence of Greece were 
indissolubly bound up, as indeed were the inde- 
pendence and liberty of Roumania, with the 
defeat of Austria and Germany. I have learnt 
since that he thought as I did, and as a conse- 
quence that he realised from the beginning that 
our highest moral duty, not only to civilisation, 
but also in respect of our interests as nations, 
was to do all in our power to bring about the 
victory of the Triple Entente. 

With the fixed idea in my head of bringing 
over all the Balkan nations to the side of the 



248 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

Triple Entente, and in spite of Austro- German 
affirmations concerning their hold on Bulgaria, 
I allowed myself to telegraph and write to 
Venizelos, begging him to help us to show, in 
this European crisis, that we were wide-minded 
Europeans. I said it would be the worse for us 
if we showed ourselves petty and provincial. 
A victorious Germany would spell moral and 
material death. A Triple Entente victorious 
without our help would spell our moral undoing. 
I told him that, just as I was advising my 
country to make territorial concessions to the 
Bulgarians, and advising the Serbs to do the 
same thing on a substantial scale, as the war 
would give them a magnificent territory extend- 
ing up to the frontiers of Italy, so Greece, in a 
lesser degree, should also set an example, more 
especially as splendid compensation awaited her 
in Asia Minor. It was in August and September, 
1914, that I ventured to write in this strain to 
my friend at Athens. I will come back to it 
later. For the sake of truth I ought to say that 
Venizelos replied to me in the autumn that 
Greece could not make any territorial concessions, 
and I felt rather bitter about it. Bitter because, 
although I did not think that I could influence 
the decisions of a Venizelos, I saw that Venizelos 
was even more than I had guessed the victim of 
difficulties originating in people without fore- 
sight, and who, therefore, cannot understand 
those who have this divine gift. The revelations 
Venizelos has recently made have completely 
cleared this matter up. 



ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 249 

Never did he appear to me greater than after 
I had read the two memoranda he addressed to 
King Constantine. 

I am one of those who have read and re-read 
Bismarck's Memoirs. There is nothing in them 
which approaches the greatness of soul revealed 
in the two documents penned by Venizelos. 
How could a man like myself fail to resent 
the ironic fate of these two papers, addressed as 
they were to people incapable of appreciating 
them. 

The publication of the documents not only 
exalts Venizelos higher than ever, but is an 
inestimable service to Greece. 

To prove to the Bulgarians that a Greek existed, 
the greatest Greek of all, who conceived the 
possibility of sacrifice in order to secure peace 
with his neighbours, that is a finer work than 
striking medals with the effigy of King Con- 
stantine on them, entitled the " Slayer of Bulgars." 



And now we come to Venizelos' last act. 
At fifty he retired from political life, announcing 
that if ever his country found herself faced 
with a great foreign crisis he would return to the 
fray, as would be his right and his duty. And 
after having affirmed with all his strength his 
right as a free man to fight no matter whom, 
he retires as a free man, announcing to his 
people that it is the last service he can render the 
Crown. 



250 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

This resignation of Venizelos, however dis- 
tracting for all the friends of Greece, presents 
one with the spectacle of almost superhuman 
greatness. This man would only have to march 
straight ahead and everything would go down 
before him. But afraid of wounding Greece, he 
performed an act of sacrifice that was harder 
than dying itself, and exiled himself from the 
company of the living. 

Compare the fall of Venizelos with that of 
Bismarck, and the superiority of our Graeco- 
Latin race over the Germans will stand out in 
all its sublimity. Dismissed by a young Emperor, 
Bismarck knows neither how to fight as a man or 
be silent as a man. He scolds like a discharged 
cook. Why this difference ? Was Bismarck of 
inferior metal to Venizelos ? It was not this, 
but that Bismarck belonged to a nation which 
for centuries has held the notion that the states- 
man is not the servant of his country but the 
servant of his king, and that the king himself is 
not the highest expression of the national will, 
but another will superimposed on that of the 
nation. 

Bismarck was heavily weighted by mediaeval 
institutions and a life of obedience, and, 
when dismissed like a servant, like a servant he 
cried aloud. The Greek, true son of the French 
revolution, knows that he is the servant of the 
people, and when he surrenders everything it 
is to the people that he makes his sacrifice. 
He withdraws as a free man without recrimina- 
tion. 



ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 251 

VI 

And now for a final recollection ! 

The last time Venizelos came to Roumania 
I had a talk with him in the embrasure of one of 
the windows of the Palace. We spoke of that 
political philosophy to which men concerned 
with the business of Government always hark 
back. Amongst other things, we spoke of the 
relations between the statesman and his Sovereign 
in countries where monarchy is still an institu- 
tion. And the Cretan said to me : " It is our 
duty to devote our heart, our brain, our life to 
strengthening and supporting our Sovereigns. 
We know well enough that, in their turn, they 
will only dismiss us if they cannot destroy us. 
All the same, we must do our duty, because it is 
our duty." 

Venizelos has done his. 



The Kaiser 



\ 



XXIX 

THE KAISER 

I HAVE only seen the Kaiser once. To speak 
of him after a single interview would be rash, 
if the Kaiser were not one of those figures 
which are always posing for the camera and whose 
characteristics can be almost instantaneously 
caught. Pope Leo XIII. who also had only seen 
him once, at the beginning of his reign, said of 
him, " This man will end in a catastrophe." 

It was in January, 1907, at Berlin, that I was 
received in audience by the Kaiser. There was 
luncheon afterwards, to which, apart from the 
Court, no one else was asked except Herr Tchir- 
sky, then Foreign Minister, and the Roumanian 
Minister to Germany, on whose unfortunate be- 
haviour during our war it is beyond me to express 
an opinion. I was waiting and chatting with the 
Empress in a little room opening into the dining- 
room, when the Kaiser came in. I was at once 
struck by his machine-made stride, and when he 
planted himself less than two paces in front of 
me, his steely eyes looking straight into mine, 
the impression of something mechanical became 
still stronger. The Kaiser's stare is like nothing 
I have ever seen before, quite abnormal in its 

255 



256 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

intensity, and distinctly suggestive of madness. 
For perhaps ten minutes he talked to me in the 
ante-room. Question followed question breath- 
lessly, giving me scarcely time to frame an 
answer to one before it was followed by 
another. 

It was clear that the Emperor meant to make 
himself pleasant. The evening before he had 
taken the trouble to enquire whether I would 
rather he talked to me in French or English. I 
had said I would prefer French. Needless to 
say, I was surprised at so obvious an intention 
to ingratiate himself : a Roumanian Minister 
of Finance was hardly so important that the 
Emperor of all-powerful Germany should be at 
such pains to please him. I naturally concluded 
that the Kaiser was a master of the art of 
seduction, and later on my impression of this 
resemblance to Nero was confirmed. 

The Kaiser started by telling me that he knew 
me very well already from the reports of Kiderlen- 
Waechter, his Minister in Roumania, who had 
told him all about me. " I don't know," he said, 
" if your brothers are fond of you, but my 
Minister's appreciation and affection for you were 
more than brotherly." He went on to talk to 
me of the difficulties of a Minister of Finance 
in our time ; then leading the conversation — 
if an avalanche of interjections can be called a 
conversation — to the question of petroleum in 
Roumania, he said to me in a cutting tone that 
he did not propose to have any interference 
from America in European affairs, and that he 



THE KAISER 257 

looked upon the full exploitation of our petro- 
leum as one of the bulwarks against her 
encroachments. 

Of this preliminary conversation this was the 
one point clearly impressed on me. It was 
plain that the Kaiser, as the world has since had 
ample reason to know, detested America. 

During lunch — I was seated on the Emperor's 
left, his daughter being on his right hand — and 
afterwards for more than an hour in the smoking- 
room, William II. talked to me without ceasing, 
skipping from one subject to another with an 
inconsequence and a feverish impatience which I 
had never previously encountered. He was bent 
on showing me that he was little short of om- 
niscient ; he even talked to me of the Roumanian 
monument in the Dobrudja — the so-called 
Tropeum by Adam Ceissi — and he was evidently 
pleased and surprised when I told him that 
Moltke had spoken of it in his book on his early 
travels. 

Among a thousand other things, the Kaiser 
asked me how King Charles had always managed 
to get his own way, in spite of our parliamentary 
system. I told him in reply that the King had 
always had the wisdom to let matters take their 
course, except in special questions which he 
thought of particular importance, and that in 
these his influence was consequently decisive. 
The Emperor then asked me why his brother-in- 
law, King George of Greece, was not similarly 
successful, and I gave him my explanation. 
During this part of the conversation I realised 



258 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

again how profound was the Kaiser's contempt 
for liberal ideas and the constitutional system. 
It was plain that he was sincere when he declared 
that Providence had chosen him as its instrument 
to insure the happiness of this poor world, just 
as Nero was sincere when he believed himself a 
great artist. 

After that we were talking of sport, especially 
in Roumania, when the Kaiser brusquely asked 
me if King Charles was popular. I said that 
popularity was hardly the word, but that the 
King enjoyed something better, since he was 
much esteemed. " Tha.t does not surprise me," 
said the Kaiser ; " it is thanks to his reserved 
temperament." Unfortunately it was in reserve 
that the Kaiser was deficient . . . 

Here I had had this man, master of the most 
formidable organisation in the world, talking to 
me for three hours with the obvious desire of 
pleasing me and of overwhelming me with his 
omniscience and his genius, and yet when I left 
the Palace I felt like an escaped prisoner. Next 
day Prince Bulow asked me how I had been 
impressed. I told him that the Kaiser was an 
extraordinary man, but that I would not be his 
Minister for anything in the world. Prince 
Biilow smiled — a rather bitter smile, which showed 
clearly that he knew exactly what I meant. 

The Kaiser, I repeat, had been more than 
kind. He even had the delicacy not to give me 
my cordon of the Red Eagle — a decoration which 
I was destined to return to him in the Spring of 
1916 — on the occasion of our lunch, but to 



THE KAISER 259 

send it to me three days later by Herr Tchirsky, 
as " a souvenir of my visit to Berlin." 

I have never seen the Kaiser since, but some 
years later, in conversation at Potsdam with a 
Roumanian lady, a musician, married to a 
German, the Emperor asked her if she was German 
by birth, and when she answered that she was a 
Roumanian the Kaiser said in reply : " Well, 
and how is our good Take Jonescu ? " My 
musical friend, who was temperamentally a 
courtier, told me of this Imperial apostrophe 
as if it were almost a divine honour. 

Of my single interview with the German 
autocrat I retain a disquieting recollection. It 
was plain to me that he was a man out of the 
ordinary run, and yet there was something 
abnormal, almost unhealthy, about him which 
kept me perpetually asking myself what he 
would ultimately do. The contemplation of real 
greatness provokes a serene sense of admiration. 
That was not the impression left on me by the 
Kaiser. On the other hand, he did not strike 
me as a man of commonplace qualities, whom the 
accident of birth had placed in a situation out 
of all proportion to his natural capacity. Rather, 
there was something exceptional about him, but 
it was something incalculable and alarming. 

From Kiderlen-Waechter I knew already the 
Kaiser's methods of work, which were at once 
comic and full of danger. Every morning he 
went to the Foreign Ministry, where he had all 
the telegrams read to him and insisted on im- 
mediate decisions. Then he drank a glass of port, 



260 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

ate two biscuits and departed. To prevent his 
monarch's impulsiveness resulting in complica- 
tions, Kiderlen had recourse to a plan of his 
own. He only showed the Kaiser such telegrams 
as had been received up to one o'clock in the 
morning, those, that is, which he had himself 
had time to consider, so that be was in a 
position, if necessary, to withstand the Emperor's 
impetuosity. 

The great question which remains, and will 
always remain, to be answered is how the Kaiser, 
whom a German once described to me as a lath 
painted to look like steel, brought himself to the 
point of launching universal war, and when he 
actually chose the date of August, 1914. The 
oftener I recall the impressions left on me 
by my interview, the more firmly I believe 
that the war had long been part of his deliberate 
policy, but that the choice of the moment and the 
form of its declaration were due to impulse. It 
would otherwise be incomprehensible that the 
Kaiser, who certainly did not lack brains (like 
his son, whom Kiderlen- Waechter frankly treated 
as deficient), should have risked all the hopes of 
his country and his house at that particular 
moment, and for the sake of a question which 
exclusively concerned Austria-Hungary. For in 
the future of Austria-Hungary William II. had 
no confidence. So long ago as the autumn of 
1912 Herr von Jagow, a favourite of the Kaiser, 
and then German Ambassador at Rome, said to 
the Roumanian Minister that the great question 
of the hour was to discover how the inevitable 



THE KAISER 261 

dissolution of Austria-Hungary could take place 
without the destruction of the European fabric. 
Again, in the early days of November, 1913, on 
my way back from Athens, where I had suc- 
ceeded in making peace between Turkey and 
Greece, I was dining with the Russian Ambassador 
at Constantinople. During the evening the Ger- 
man Ambassador, von Wangenheim, now dead, 
who was also a favourite of the Kaiser, and whom 
I then met for the first time, carried me off into 
the bay of a window, and after first congratulat- 
ing me on what I had done at Athens, said to me, 
in so many words, " You will see that the sick 
man of Europe, the Turk, will still be here when 
Austria-Hungary is no more than a historical 
recollection." So the Kaiser could have been 
under no illusion as to the possibility of giving the 
Hapsburg Empire a new lease of life. 

How then can we explain his policy ? Per- 
haps the key can be found in a confidential state- 
ment he made at Potsdam in the early days of 
August, 1914, to the Crown Prince of Roumania. 
The Emperor told him that it was in the interest 
of Roumania to place herself at the side of 
Germany, whose victory was beyond question, 
because Austria- Hungary could not last for more 
than twenty years, and Germany would then 
give Transylvania to Roumania. The Kaiser's 
crime against the peace of the world is therefore 
all the more unpardonable, because in his inmost 
heart he could not believe that it would bring 
the era of great European upheavals to a close. 
He drew the sword, not to preserve Austria, but 



262 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

in order to dispose of her ultimately in his own 
fashion and at his own time. 

It must not be supposed, because I have only 
spoken to the Kaiser once, that this conversation 
is my only material for the estimate I have 
framed of him. An essential timorousness is the 
explanation of his character, and, like all men 
who are not really courageous, when the Kaiser 
decided to make daring the key-note of his policy, 
he overdid it. An incident of the early years of 
his reign with which I am acquainted reveals 
him precisely. Bismarck had no love for him, 
and lost no occasion to make the Kaiser under- 
stand that he was a figurehead, and that the real 
authority rested with his Chancellor. He went 
so far in this that one day, when the Emperor 
asked him to promote a diplomatist of minor 
rank for whom he had a liking, Bismarck curtly 
refused. In spite of this the Emperor stuck to 
his point and returned to it several times. Bis- 
marck remained immovable. Faced with this 
situation, the Emperor had not the strength of 
mind either to abandon his demand or to give 
his instructions as an order. The tension became 
so great that someone in the Kaiser's immediate 
circle went to Hoist ein and asked him to use his 
well-known influence with Bismarck to bring an 
impossible situation to an end. Bismarck would 
not hear a word of it. Holstein at length de- 
cided to make a fresh attempt the day before the 
Kaiser was starting on a cruise in the North Sea. 
Just as he was embarking he was told that there 
were indications of Bismarck giving way. During 



THE KAISER 263 

the whole voyage the Emperor was restless, 
nervous, and irritable, and yet never dared to 
say a word against his Chancellor. At the first 
point at which he touched in Norway he learnt 
the news that Bismarck had at last yielded. 
His delight was overwhelming. He was as ex- 
travagantly pleased as a child. Kiderlen-Waech- 
ter, who accompanied him, and had told 
Holstein how necessary it was that this small 
satisfaction should be given to the Emperor, was 
more than astonished at the spectacle of the 
master of all Germany literally jumping with 
joy at having been able to promote a civil servant. 
This is the same man who, when the day came on 
which he decided to destroy the builder of modern 
Germany, acted with reckless audacity and an 
absolute want of proportion or delicacy — once 
again the weak man overdoing it ! It was 
probably in the same fashion that he brought 
about the world-war. For years he had wished 
for it, but the risk involved frightened him. As 
soon as he had made a step forward he recoiled 
from the decisive measure, — again the essentially 
timorous man willing to wound but yet afraid to 
strike. 

But on the day when he had screwed his courage 
to the sticking point his impetuosity became 
nearly insane, for it was insanity on the part of 
the Kaiser to declare war himself in place of 
provoking his adversaries and forcing them to 
declare it on him. 

The complex personality of the Emperor 
William and the dreadful penalty which humanity 



264 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 

has paid because the last Hohenzollern, instead 
of being the traditional Prussian sovereign, 
not too intellectual but full of common-sense, 
was half a madman and half a genius, must 
confirm us all in the profound conviction that 
the well-being of a country and of the world is 
a charge too serious to depend on the accidents 
of absolutism. 



Printed in Great Britain by Robert MacLehose and Co. Ltd. , at the University Press, Glasgow. 















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